


Elegy

by skadren



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Cloud-typical angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Memory Loss, Misunderstandings, Multi, Mutual Pining, Sort Of Time Travel?, the "i woke up several years in the future" kind
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2020-06-09 20:33:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 60,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19483495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skadren/pseuds/skadren
Summary: Cloud’s never fully remembered his time in ShinRa. It hadn’t been a problem when everyone he'd known from that time had been dead, but now they aren’t. And they definitely consider it a Problem.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so i was thinking about how so many people write fic where cloud is or was dating one (or two, or all) of the soldier firsts during his trooper days, despite how implausible it is, and i wondered what postcanon cloud would have thought of it
> 
> and ofc since i am trash for that trope too this happened
> 
> cloud remembers (or thinks he remembers) the canon version of events. everyone else… well.

_It has begun._

Cloud blinks as Zack’s limp weight on his shoulders fades away, opening his eyes to a field of flowers blooming brightly under a familiar endless expanse of white. They wave cheerfully in some nonexistent breeze. Behind him, the gentle rustle of footsteps halts.

“Aerith,” he greets, feeling her familiar warmth press against his back.

“Cloud.” He can hear the smile in her voice. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, low and rough.

It’s been years, in fact. He’d never expected to speak to Aerith again—she’d walked away with Zack the day the rain fell, proud of the unspoken promise that had passed between them. But now Zack is here, _alive,_ not in the Lifestream with Aerith where he belongs, and Cloud doesn’t know what it means.

Aerith giggles. “You’re getting all floaty again, Mr. Head-in-the-Clouds. You’re worrying too much, as usual.”

“Am I?” Cloud asks softly.

“Of course, silly!” Aerith says. “Relax. Everything will be fine. Now, listen—I don’t have much time. It’s hard to contact you like this, you know. I’m here to deliver a message.”

“A message,” Cloud repeats. “From the Planet?”

Aerith giggles again. “Something like that. Zack will be fine, okay? Death is just like a long sleep, really. The Planet just decided to wake him up a bit earlier than usual, that’s all.”

“Sleep,” Cloud says. “Right. So it _was_ the Planet who revived him, then. But _why?”_

For the first time, Aerith hesitates. “I don’t know. Nothing _seems_ wrong. Maybe Gaia just thought she’d give him a second chance.”

Cloud grunts. _Bullshit,_ he doesn’t say. There's no one who deserves a second chance as much as Zack other than Aerith herself, but he doubts Gaia just handed it out on a whim.

Aerith laughs. “I’m sure that whatever happens, with the five of you working together, everything will turn out fine. Now, you should go pay the WRO a visit, Cloud. You’ll find something important if you do.”

Cloud blinks. “The WRO? But I was just there a few days ago."

“Go visit the WRO,” Aerith’s voice repeats, her presence rapidly fading along with the flowers.

Then Cloud blinks again, and he’s back on the cliffs overlooking Midgar. Had she said— _five_ of them—?

Cloud shakes his head and carefully hefts Zack higher onto his back, setting course for Edge.

-

“—a restricted room, sir, you can’t—! Sir—!”

“How kind of you to finally grace us with your presence. I should have known you’d rush here as fast as physically possible upon hearing the news,” Rufus says as Cloud storms into the surveillance room, Zack still slung over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. After dragging Zack’s comatose body to the WRO’s hospital wing, he’d already been well on his way to panicking, despite Aerith's reassurances. When he’d found out from the nurses that not only Sephiroth, but also his two probably-insane best friends had also come back to life, well…

“I—I’m sorry, Mr. Shinra, sir,” says a small, meek-looking secretary, fluttering her hands nervously. “I _said_ you were busy, but—”

Rufus holds up a hand, looking amused. “It’s perfectly all right, Nella. Far be it from me to expect anyone to stop Cloud Strife on a warpath. Cloud, why don’t you let the staff take care of your friend, there, and we can have a nice long chat?”

Cloud hesitates, but Rufus gestures up at the many screens displaying various areas of the hospital. “You’ll be able to see him right there, and I’m sure you want him to have somewhere more comfortable to rest than your back. I promise, no harm will come to him.”

“ … Fine,” Cloud says grudgingly.

“Nella, get some nurses to bring a gurney, will you?”

Nella wrings her hands again, bobbing her head before darting out. She soon returns with several men and a gurney, and they load Zack onto it with quick, efficient movements. As they leave, the door shuts loudly behind them.

“What did you _do?”_ Cloud is tempted to slam his hands onto the shiny oak desk for emphasis, but refrains. He’d probably break it, and wood is a resource in high demand nowadays—the smug asshole would just buy a new one to flaunt how rich he still is.

“I’m flattered that you think I’m capable of raising the dead, Cloud,” Rufus says, “but I, in fact, am not responsible for the revival of these men.”

“The only one who's flattering you is yourself. You have three super-SOLDIERs locked up at your mercy in your facilities, Rufus. What are you planning?”

“I’ll be frank,” Rufus says. “If it had been just Sephiroth, I’d have ordered him killed on the spot. However, all four of them being revived at once changes things. Even if Sephiroth himself is still insane, the other three are likely able to be reasoned with. On the other hand, this doesn’t mean that some… unsavory characters won’t take advantage of this situation. After all, Hojo has demonstrated that humans are capable of exploiting JENOVA’s cells quite effectively. And even without the risk of them being used for someone’s apocalyptic machinations, there’s the matter of their stability. We’re keeping them here to monitor for any signs of degradation not only for the safety of others, but their own as well.”

Cloud frowns and says tentatively, “The Planet brought them back.”

He shifts uncomfortably. He’s never brought up the way the Planet occasionally drops him messages through dreams and visions with anyone—it makes himself uncomfortable enough—but he’s come to Rufus with enough random tidbits of conveniently useful information that he’s probably got at least a good guess of what madness goes on in Cloud’s head.

“ … That’s reassuring,” Rufus says after a moment. “If this is the Planet’s doing, then it’s likely they’ll be stable, at least mentally and physically speaking. Perhaps… very well. How about this? I’d still like to run a few tests, just to be safe. But after they’re all cleared, they’re free to go, provided that you continue to accompany them.”

Cloud blinks. “I—what? So easily?"

“I’m under no illusions about the security of this facility should you decide that you have serious objections to the way they are being treated. But I’m comfortable with leaving them in your care. You already have a vested interest in preserving people’s lives, so to speak, so you won’t let them simply run about freely. Furthermore, you have both the experience to recognize any signs of degradation and the capability to neutralize violent actions with the least amount of collateral damage. At least this way, if you notice any erratic behavior, you might trust us enough to alert us as soon as possible.”

“And what happens to them if I do?” Cloud says warily. If it leads to killing them—killing _Zack—_

“Relax. The earlier we’re notified, the more time we’ll have to devise an alternate, nonlethal solution. We’d like death to be the absolute last resort.”

“I don’t understand,” Cloud says. “It’d be so much easier for you to just kill them. Hell, you had the time to do it before I showed up, and I’d be none the wiser. Why are you trying so hard?”

“You have such little faith in me,” Rufus laments. “Can I not simply be trying to make amends for how my father’s company severely wronged these men in the past? But if you must assign me an ulterior motive… SOLDIER Firsts make rather powerful allies. If we play our cards correctly, this can turn out quite beneficial for us.”

“Should’ve known you just want more pawns for your power plays,” Cloud grumbles, but there’s no real heat behind his words. Rufus, for all his manipulative schemes, does genuinely desire to change ShinRa’s legacy for the better by working with the WRO. Personally, Cloud has a theory that he only still acts like a pompous asshole to for the sole purpose of pissing people off.

Rufus shrugs languidly. “It’s good that we understand each other. So? Do you agree?”

Cloud sighs, running a hand through his hair. “You’re making a pretty big gamble right now. For all we know, Sephiroth is gonna wake up and go right back to his gleeful murder spree.”

“You make a terrible devil’s advocate, Cloud,” Rufus says, smirking. He knows Cloud will agree. Bastard.

Aerith had said that this is their second chance. Cloud doesn’t doubt that it comes with many, many strings attached, but…

“ … Fine,” he says grudgingly. “But next time you wanna gamble, hit up the Gold Saucer, not me. At least they get paid to deal with your risk-taking urges.”

Cloud doesn’t know what Gaia wants, but these men don’t deserve to suffer for something they have no control over. They’ll undoubtedly feel lost in this new world, still angry and bitter over the unfair hand they’d been dealt. In the end, their actions had been driven by feelings of loneliness, of betrayal, of hopelessness. Of how no one understands, how no one _cares_ to understand.

(Sephiroth’s eyes when they’d been in Nibelheim… sad and lonely and _hurt._ Cloud had seen a kindred spirit, those few moments. Then the next time he’d seen Sephiroth, his eyes had been devoid of all but hatred.)

He knows all these feelings intimately. He also knows how much patience, a kind smile, and most of all forgiveness will do. Having always been on the receiving end, he can’t claim to be very experienced in giving any of these, but if he can help, even just a little…

He shuts out the voice in his head that mocks the very idea of _him,_ a lowly trooper, being able to do anything to help _First Class SOLDIERs._ It’s a remnant of his long-past army days, when he was timid and unconfident and easily awed—he should be over it by now, but thinking of the trio of commanders and Zack, not as what they had become, but as what they used to be, is messing with his head. And _Sephiroth—_

 _(Failure,_ another familiar hated voice sneers, merging with the first. _Useless puppet. Not even worth a number.)_

 _(Good,_ he sneers right back. _Better a failed puppet than one still tied by its strings.)_

-

Sephiroth awakens to a loud commotion outside. Voices, shouting. The harsh impact of bodies against the unforgiving wall.

“Where is he? Where did you take us?! How did you—don’t touch me—where _is he?!”_

If he had to guess, he would say the voice was Zack’s. But that’s impossible. He’d—Zack is—Zack had—

He shudders and refuses to remember, but anguished screams ring in his ears regardless. When he opens his eyes, he swears there are remnants of flickering flame in the corners of his vision, before they give way to—

Whiteness. Gleaming chrome, sterilized floors, and blank, blank walls, staring accusingly back at him as if to say, _Your fault. All your fault. You killed them all, you burned it all, you killed—_

 _“CLOUD!!”_ Zack’s desperate scream echoes hauntingly through the halls. It takes one heartbeat, then two—too long, much too long—for Sephiroth to realize it resounds in more than just his memories. He lunges forward, only to gracelessly fall back onto the hard mattress beneath him, a choked scream of pain escaping his lips as his arms nearly jerk out of his sockets, trapped by impossibly strong restraints— _impossible,_ Hojo’s voice sneers like poison, _the pinnacle of my creation (a monster,_ something else whispers) _cannot be held back by mere bindings—_

The door to his room slams open, a panicked woman in a blue and white uniform rushes in—a nurse, one part of him murmurs, only to be drowned out by another that screams _doctor scientist HOJO painneedlesburning—_

She stares at him, something like _fearpanicdisgusthorror_ flashing through her dark dark eyes—like the smoke creeping over the skies in Nibelheim as everything _burnsburnsburns,_ like the _painbetrayalhatred_ breaking open Cloud’s gentle, lovely face as Sephiroth gleefully runs him through with Masamune—

_(over and over and over again)_

She drops her papers and screams.

Zack’s voice abruptly stops.

Distantly, a part of Sephiroth wonders if it shouldn’t be him screaming, instead.

-

“What did you do,” Sephiroth demands the moment Reeve Tuesti, Director of Urban Planning and Development, steps into the room. He tugs uselessly at his bonds, feeling helpless and off-guard for the first time he can remember.

Tuesti shuts the door securely behind him. “A safety measure,” he answers calmly as he seats himself by the bed. “It’s a serum we developed specifically to counteract J-cells. Any strength derived from them is neutralized until it is completely flushed from your system. It doesn’t prevent you from drawing on your natural strength—as showcased by our rather… robust friend outside, which is why we had to tranquilize him—but it’s definitely enough for those restraints to hold you.”

Sephiroth frowns. “What exactly are J-cells? Genesis… sought them to cure his degradation, and he claimed I had them, but I have no knowledge of them otherwise.”

“Is that so?” Tuesti says, rubbing his goatee. “How interesting.”

Sephiroth watches him, eyes narrowed, resisting the impulse to ask what, exactly, is so interesting.

“Tell me. What do you last remember?”

“I have no obligation to answer to the Head of Urban Development.”

Tuesti smiles humorlessly. “I’ve not been the Head of Urban Development for years, but I _am_ in charge of these facilities. I apologize for these… uncomfortable accommodations, but believe me when I say it is an entirely necessary safety measure. It would be in your best interest to humor me. If you prove my suspicions correct, then we have no need to confine you in such a manner, and I will do my best to answer any questions you may have in turn.”

Sephiroth does not need to be told that his restraints are necessary for people’s safety. There are still flames burnt into the backs of his eyelids every time he blinks.

“The last thing I remember clearly… is entering Nibelheim, on a mission to inspect a faulty reactor,” he says grudgingly. “After that, both my judgment and my perception were somewhat… compromised. I only have a few impressions of—fire. Screams. A strange, sibilant voice… Zack—” Sephiroth cuts himself off with a shudder. “I… fell into mako. How am I still alive?”

“I see.” Tuesti sighs. “Things just got both more and less complicated, then.” He folds his hands under his chin, balancing his elbows on his knees. “Last night, Genesis Rhapsodos stumbled into our facilities in Midgar, carrying the unconscious body of Angeal Hewley and desperate for any kind of assistance. He fell unconscious himself approximately an hour later. Less than six hours after that, several of our personnel reported finding _your_ unconscious body on the outskirts of Nibelheim. Another one of our associates brought in Zack Fair from the outskirts of Midgar this morning.”

“Impossible,” Sephiroth says. “Genesis and Angeal are both dead.”

The moment the sentence leaves his mouth, though, something in him objects. An image of Genesis, aged and fading, posturing in a reactor—the Nibel reactor?—flashes in his mind, but the encounter is a blur.

“They were,” Tuesti agrees. “As well as you, and Zack Fair. You’ve all been dead for years. But now you’re clearly not, and we’re trying to find out why.”

“People do not simply come back from the dead,” Sephiroth says.

“Recent occurrences have proved that rather sensible assumption very wrong,” Tuesti says wryly, looking something other than somber for the first time. “In fact, I personally know someone who came back from the dead, who in turn had several encounters with someone else who came back from the dead not once, not twice, but three times.”

Sephiroth blinks. “You… are not joking.”

“I assure you, I have far funnier things I could be joking about,” he says. “You can speak to your companions once they wake up. Your J-cells will still be inert for at least twenty-four hours, so based on what you’ve said so far, I’m willing to release you from your bonds.”

“You still have not answered my question. What are J-cells?”

“You said you heard a voice, in Nibelheim,” Tuesti says. “And your judgment was ‘compromised’. Correct?”

“ … Yes.”

“J-cells were a key component of SOLDIER injections. In high concentrations, they lead to degradation when unstable. When stable, they form the link that allows that voice to communicate with you and subsequently manipulate your perception. The serum is a temporary solution that will prevent it from reaching you—repressing your enhancements is just a convenient side-effect. We quite honestly thought the… entity behind the manipulations dead, but with your respective resurrections, well… one can never be too careful.”

“So all four of us have these ‘J-cells’ in higher concentrations than the average SOLDIER,” Sephiroth concludes. “Why?”

He has a sneaking suspicion he already _knows_ why. Another image flashes through his vision, this time of a dark library filled with reports that had made his skin crawl with the urge to scream, to destroy, to watch the world burn.

 _(You did_ . _The world burned as you laughed.)_

_(and afterwards, you felt nothing)_

Tuesti hesitates, watching him cautiously. “I believe… it would be better for someone else to answer any of your questions about that. In the meantime, we've pulled newspapers from the past fifteen years from the archives, so you can catch up with what at least the public knows of what’s happened since… everything. I’ve already spoken with Genesis and Angeal; they’re reviewing the papers now in a separate room. Zack should be joining them shortly, once he wakes up.”

“ … Very well,” Sephiroth concedes. "I will read your newspapers."

Tuesti looks relieved. “Then I’ll call a few people over to help remove those,” he says, gesturing at the straps on Sephiroth’s arms and legs as he stands. “We’ll take you to the others after that.”

-

“Sir!” A knock at the door interrupts Cloud and Rufus’s conversation.

“Come in,” Rufus says. “What is it?”

A harried-looking nurse steps in. “They’re awake, sir. All of them.”

Cloud starts, then makes for the door, but Rufus holds up a hand. “Wait.” He turns back to the nurse. “Have any of the tests come back yet?”

He nods. “The anti-J-cell serum is working perfectly, and tests on their blood drawn prior to administering show that the cells were already in their dormant form. Mr. Hewley and Mr. Rhapsodos—the first two to wake—have already spoken with our psychologists, and their mental states seem as stable as can be expected. The President is speaking with Sephiroth personally. Mr. Fair… we were informed that he was a low-level priority in terms of stability, so he managed to raise a bit of a ruckus before we could sedate him, but—”

“You _sedated_ him?”

“O-only a mild sedative,” the nurse stammers, startled by Cloud’s sudden ferocity. “It should last for less than half an hour, and we’ve moved him into the same room as the others, which should hopefully calm him down when he wakes. Sephiroth will be moved there too, once he finishes speaking with the President, and we’ve provided them with newspapers as you requested, sir. Is there anything else?”

“No,” Rufus says. “That will be all, thank you. You may leave—no, not you, Cloud.”

Cloud frowns. “You can’t order me around like the rest of your lackeys.”

“Be patient. Give them some time to catch up by themselves, both with each other and with the happenings of the past decade,” Rufus says. “They deserve it, don’t they? You’ll have plenty of time to speak with them later. However…” He gestures at the screens again, but this time presses a button, and together they switch to show a large, combined image of a single room, three familiar men inside.

“You want to _spy_ on them?”

“No audio,” Rufus reassures him. “Just video, so you can see I’m not pulling any deceptions while we wait here.”

Cloud plops himself down on the floor with a huff. “Fine.”

-

“And then you came for me,” Zack says to Angeal. “There were white feathers everywhere, and I was _so happy_ that you’d come for me. And… I left him behind. I can’t believe—I left him to deal with it all. I _failed_ . I didn’t bring him to safety, I threw all my burdens onto him, and I _smiled_ as I left him alone.” He chokes and swipes at his face, eyes burning.

They sit together in silence, the last of Zack’s words ringing in the stark white room. It’s completely bare other than their stiff, straight-backed chairs gathered around a simple wooden table, an explosion of newspapers scattered haphazardly across the tabletop. Adding to the prison cell-like effect, there are no windows to be found, and the door is a reinforced metal contraption keyed to a passcode. Angeal and Genesis’s hands clutch each other tightly, their faces wan and pale under the fluorescent lights. Sephiroth’s face could be carved from stone, but his equally white-knuckled grip on warped edge of his chair gives him away.

“I’m sorry,” Zack says quietly.

“You have nothing to apologize for, Zack,” Angeal says. “You suffered so much, and fought honorably to the end. You did everything you possibly could—you literally _gave up your life._ If anything, I should be the one apologizing. The terrible things I did… the terrible things I _forced_ you to do…”

“We all did terrible things,” Genesis says. “Degradation is more than the degeneration of one's physical body. It eats away at your soul, the core of your very being, until all that is left is rage and hurt and the unquenchable desire to see the world burn. It’s intoxicating, that rage—you don’t even realize you’ve gone mad until it’s too late. It’s no excuse, of course—my actions… when I awoke after receiving the Goddess’s blessing, I almost wished I _had_ died before I had fallen, wings stripped away, pride lost—”

Zack flinches.

“I'm sorry, Zack,” Angeal says quietly.

“I know,” says Zack. “Just—give me some time. I’m—I’m so _sorry_ —”

“Shh, it’ll be all right. Come here, pup.” Angeal extends his free arm for a hug.

Zack sniffs, thick and watery, and gladly lunges into his embrace. Genesis joins in a few seconds later, clutching the both of them fiercely.

As one, they turn to stare at Sephiroth, whose eyes flicker uncertainly before he slowly shuffles towards their puppy pile, only to be pulled in immediately when within arm’s reach.

“So now what?” Zack says, muffled against Angeal’s chest.

Angeal frowns. “Do we believe what they’re telling us? That’s the real question.”

“What, that we’ve all been dead or asleep for years, ShinRa's replaced with the World Re-something Organization, and Midgar was destroyed by a giant space rock? Not to mention a weirdly hush-hush attack with a gods-damned _Bahamut Sin_ summon involved that nearly leveled the city, _again,_ and _then_ the almost-end-of-the-world. Plus AVALANCHE going from ecoterrorism to saving the world—it seems pretty crazy to me," Zack says. "A bunch of the later articles mentioned Rufus Shinra. Which means ShinRa is probably still a thing. I dunno about you guys, but I don’t really feel like trusting anything that has to do with ShinRa at all. If they’d bothered to make something up, you’d think they’d at least try to make it more believable.”

Sephiroth carefully extricates himself just enough to flip through the pile of newspapers scattered across the table, sorting them into three different stacks. “They present a compelling case. Forging an airtight story with newspapers is a nearly impossible feat, even for the Turks. And it does, indeed, seem rather unstrategic to use such a farfetched scheme of events.” He picks up the earliest paper, the one with the blaring headline OVERWHELMING VICTORY OVER WUTAI, and slides it under SEPHIROTH KIA PROTECTING VILLAGE FROM REACTOR MALFUNCTION.

The second grouping contains AVALANCHE TERRORISTS BRING DOWN SECTOR 7 PLATE, PRESIDENT MURDERED WITHIN SHINRA TOWER, and THE SUCCESSION OF SHINRA: A PRESSING ISSUE. Sephiroth places METEORFALL: FACT VS FICTION on the top of this pile. He then stacks THE WRO: WHAT DO THEY TRULY WANT? over GEOSTIGMA DEATHS SKYROCKET, and adds MIRACLE CURE IN MIDGAR on top. The last article reads THE LAST OF SHINRA VANQUISHED: THE END OF DEEPGROUND. That was from five years ago; the rest of the newspapers are deemed irrelevant and stacked on the floor.

“Strangely, though there are several repeat names of AVALANCHE members linked with the WRO, namely Barret Wallace, Cid Highwind, and, most importantly, Reeve Tuesti, they never use anyone for recruitment propaganda. In fact, their leader is never named, nor are there any pictures of their entire group. If the WRO is anything like ShinRa, it would have seized the chance for publicity. Furthermore, they have been involved exclusively in monster clean-up and recovery efforts so far. Perhaps they truly are different.

“Nothing here directly contradicts what we remember,” Sephiroth concludes. “Nor does it seem conducive towards any sort of ulterior motive. Perhaps it is as they say—after all, the more unbelievable it is, the more likely it is to have actually happened. But I am… not quite as confident in my judgment towards documents’ trustworthiness anymore. Not after…”

Angeal and Genesis glance at each other uncertainly, so it’s Zack who places his hand over Sephiroth’s. “Hey. It’s okay—you were under that alien bitch’s control. That much, at least, I could get from the way you were obsessing over her head…” At Sephiroth’s wince, he laughs sheepishly. “Too soon? Sorry, sorry… but really. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I don’t know, Zack.” Sephiroth’s eyes are lost. “It did not _feel_ like I was being controlled. That is the most terrifying part—everything I did seemed so _logical_ at the time.”

“But you don’t think it was _now,_ do you?” Zack presses.

“Of course not!” Sephiroth seems repulsed by the very idea. “The fire—the townspeople— _Cloud—”_

“Okay, repeat after me: ‘it wasn’t my fault.’”

“Zack—”

“‘It wasn’t my fault.’”

“It wasn’t… my fault.”

“Again. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“There you go. That wasn’t that hard, now was it?”

Sephiroth doesn’t answer. “There remains our main issue—do we believe what Tuesti is saying or not?”

Genesis hums, chin resting on Zack’s dark hair. “I do remember hearing of Meteorfall as well as the heroes of AVALANCHE when I briefly woke, once. That much, at least, is true—and I am _quite_ interested in meeting the people who were able to take down Deepground.”

“Tuesti said he called someone who we would find more trustworthy to explain everything to us,” Angeal says thoughtfully. “Who do you think he meant?”

“Perhaps someone from AVALANCHE,” Genesis suggests. “It would have to be someone knowledgeable enough about the situation to explain it, after all.”

“Hey, maybe it’ll be an old SOLDIER buddy!” Zack exclaims excitedly. “Someone who took down an evil nasty Hojo-enhanced organization has to also be enhanced, right? And he’d probably think we’d trust someone we used to know.”

“It would be someone who we would believe would not be manipulated or bought to corroborate his story,” Sephiroth muses. “Tuesti knows we are not gullible. A SOLDIER does seem most likely.”

They are silent again for a few more minutes, before Zack hesitantly says, “Do you think they know anything about Cloud?”

Genesis scoffs. “They’d better. Otherwise there’d have been no point to us playing along with their requests.”

“Be more grateful, Gen. They gave us plenty of useful information,” Angeal scolds. “We wouldn’t have gotten very far just barging out into a world we know nothing about to look for him.”

But then Zack says, small and quiet, “But what if—what if he’s—”

“No,” Sephiroth says, green eyes bright and fierce. “Cloud is strong. He stopped me in the reactor, after all. There’s no way he didn’t survive.”

Beside him, Angeal hums in agreement. Zack, however, doesn’t reply. None of them had _seen_ what condition Cloud had been in—catatonic and nearly lifeless as he’d laid against Zack, and later sluggish and confused as he’d stumbled away. He would have been so small, so helpless, so _alone_ on his trek through the Wastelands, vulnerable to any nearby monster with a taste for human flesh. And if he’d survived that journey, had he ever recovered from his mako poisoning? What about insane-Sephiroth’s rampage? There were _so many ways_ that the tiny blond could have been torn apart, so many ways Zack could have failed him.

“Don’t worry, puppy. We’ll face whatever comes together.” A hand gently ruffles his hair.

And Zack, too ashamed to face his lovers’ tender caresses and soothing words but too weak to go without, buries himself deeper in their embrace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is probably just gonna be a shitty romcom drama but i have a bad habit of suddenly giving my shitty dramas actual plots? especially since i feel the need to justify why dead people are suddenly popping up like daisies. so we'll see how it goes, eyy


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for all your kind comments :)
> 
> tbh i’m not too satisfied with this bc i must have written and trashed like 5 different scenarios where they meet cloud and they all have their pros and cons and it was way too hard to decide which one to use, but i figured it had to get done somehow so i just. picked one

“First of all, I’d like to thank you for being so accommodating. I understand that this is likely very alarming for you all, so your willingness to put our past hurts behind us is quite appreciated. I assure you, we are working quite hard at resolving the details of your… miraculous resurrections, so to speak. Please, sit.” Rufus Shinra reclines smugly in his plush chair as he gestures to the couch opposite him. Directly behind him, midday light sneaks through the blinds, providing Rufus with a suitably dramatic shadowed backdrop. Rude and Reno stand on opposite sides of the room, the larger man straight-backed and vigilant while his partner leans languidly against the wall, twirling an unlit cigarette between his fingertips.

“Of course,” Sephiroth replies with a sharp smile that isn’t a smile at all, really, as he very conspicuously does not sit down. Zack and the others simply watch, content to let Sephiroth’s well-versed political face run the show. “I would expect nothing less. I understand that you have arranged a place for us to stay while you resolve… whatever needs resolving, including the matter of our… _caretaker?”_

The sheer amount of scorn fit in those three syllables makes Zack flinch. It’s directed not only towards the idea that Rufus would dare try to keep an eye on them—the audacity of the idea that he even thinks someone is even _capable_ of keeping an eye on them—but also towards Sephiroth himself, that he needs someone to make sure he doesn’t go batshit crazy again, that he can’t even trust his own ironclad self-control anymore. There’d been one thing that Sephiroth could call his own and not ShinRa’s—his will, his spirit, his _soul—_ and now he knows that even that has been stolen, encroached upon, perverted.

“Ah,” says the man with long, slicked back hair and a well-trimmed beard standing by the door, quickly putting his sleek PHS away. “Yes, we have. The man you’ll be staying with is waiting in the hangar along with your transportation to your new accommodations.”

Reeve Tuesti, Zack thinks he vaguely remembers. If anything could convince Zack that he’d woken up over a decade in the future after his rather tragic death, it would be the large screen on his ultra-thin device, not a button in sight. The silver lining the man’s otherwise dark hair and the visible aging on his face, matched by Rufus’s older, wearier appearance, help, too.

“Our new accommodations?” Angeal repeats. “Where exactly would that be?”

“The Villa in Costa del Sol,” Rufus says.

A tiny crease forms in Sephiroth’s brow. “ShinRa property? We were informed that we were free to go.”

Reeve shakes his head. “It’s not ShinRa property anymore. However, you are allowed to leave if you truly object to staying there. As long as you stay with our contact.”

Before any of them can question further, Rufus says, “Now that that’s settled, there are a few things I’d like to lay down before you leave. If you would all return every other week for monitoring—”

“No,” Sephiroth says. The air in the room suddenly feels very thick.

“Now, this is for your own good,” Rufus chides. “It’s not every day that people rise from the dead. We’re here to make sure there are no… negative repercussions, so to speak. It would only be a weekly blood test and a few questions.”

“No,” Sephiroth repeats. “You’ve done your testing already; you said we were free to go. I did not object to constant surveillance, no matter how intrusive to our privacy it is, because I understood your reasoning behind it. However, I will not subject my men to any further experimentation.”

“Sephiroth,” Rufus says. “You do realize that you are not in any position to negotiate. You may either comply with my requests, or return to that room you woke up in, bound by straps and helpless. Your companions will not be spared the same fate.”

Sephiroth growls, but Reeve quickly interjects, “Rufus. Think of Cloud.”

And suddenly, the tension in the room escalates to new heights.

“Cloud?” Sephiroth says, very softly, a dangerous look crossing his face. It mirrors how Zack feels. If they’re holding Cloud hostage—

Rufus’s eyes narrow. “Does that name ring any bells?”

Sephiroth hesitates. They may have tried to keep their relationship a secret, back then, but it’s unlikely it had escaped the Turks’ suspicions. Whether Rufus knows or not, if Cloud is here somehow, saying that the four First Class SOLDIERs had been familiar with him is as good as sealing his fate as leverage.

Sephiroth’s hesitation apparently says plenty, though, and Rufus nods thoughtfully. “Very well. You may speak to Cloud first, then we will see.”

“So Cloud—Cloud really is here, then?” Zack says, hopeful and fearful at once.

Reeve nods. “Rufus, why don’t we all go to see him?”

Rufus stands and asks, “Any last-minute questions before we depart?”

Zack _burns_ with all the questions he wants to ask, but he keeps his mouth shut, watching the three other SOLDIERs glance at each other and reach a silent agreement. Rufus isn’t going to disclose much else right now, and there’s nothing more important than seeing Cloud again anyways.

Sephiroth inclines his head. “Lead the way.”

-

“Thanks for your help, Cloud,” Kunsel says as Cloud lifts the last wooden crate off the truck. “When I signed up for the WRO, I didn’t expect they were planning on using ex-SOLDIERs as pack mules…”

Cloud huffs a laugh, stacking it neatly on top of the others. “They’ll use ex-SOLDIERs for anything, really. And it’s no problem. I needed the distraction.”

“Speaking of ex-SOLDIERs…” Kunsel sneaks a furtive look over his shoulder, then leans in and whispers, “Is it true?”

Cloud cocks his head in a silent question.

“That the Firsts are all back,” Kunsel specifies. “They’re saying they were brought back by the Planet to help us rebuild. Either that, or JENOVA revived them and she’s going to use them as her mindless puppets to take over the world. But I’d rather think about the first version.”

“You… really are an entire rumor mill all by yourself,” Cloud says, vaguely impressed.

“So is that a yes or a no?”

Cloud shrugs. “I don’t know, am I allowed to disclose classified information without getting clearance from your superiors?”

“Cloud!” Kunsel says. “We both know you don’t give a shit about that kind of stuff.”

“I don’t, but I also hate listening to Rufus bitch about—” Cloud stiffens, cutting himself off as rage sparks bright from a dark, sealed-off corner in his mind. It fades just as quickly, but it simmers just below the surface, ready to boil over at a moment’s notice.

“—oud? Cloud?” Kunsel waves a hand in front of Cloud’s face, looking concerned. “Are you all right? You went all spacey.”

Cloud turns unerringly toward what he knows is the source of the electricity prickling over his skin. “Sephiroth…” he mutters. “He’s angry. Rufus, what have you done?”

“Sephi—” Kunsel chokes. “So it is true, then.”

Cloud shakes his head, clearing it. “I need to go.”

“What? Wait, Cloud—”

Cloud begins making his way through the large hangar to the entrance, but before he even reaches halfway, it slides open, and in steps Rufus, followed by Reeve and four tall, familiar men. He catches a glimpse of Reno and Rude stop outside the entryway before the door slides shut again.

“What’s wrong,” Cloud demands as he halts in front of them. “I felt…” He trails off as his gaze meets Zack’s, and his breath catches in his throat. Carrying his unconscious body is somehow completely different from seeing him awake, _alive,_ and even though his usual grin isn’t lingering on his lips something that has been knotted tightly in Cloud’s chest for the past decade loosens, and he feels—overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by too many emotions, all tangled together, that he hasn’t the faintest idea how to even begin to process.

They stay staring at each other like that, wide-eyed, drinking each other in for a heartbeat, a breath, an eternity, suspended by the yawning gap of the years lost between them, then—

Then Rufus prompts, “You said you felt…?”

Cloud blinks and forcefully composes his expression, ignoring how he half wants to scream and half wants to cry. _They don’t need or want to see your emotional baggage,_ he reminds himself, shoving away the turmoil battering his nerves as he purposefully flicks his gaze over to Sephiroth. He doesn’t meet the man’s eyes—he doesn’t think he can quite bring himself to do that yet, no matter how good his poker face is—but Rufus is perceptive enough that it gets the message across.

He nods in satisfaction. “And your verdict?”

Cloud hesitates. “It’s… different.”

Cloud had always been able to hear JENOVA’s voice when Sephiroth was near, before, in conjunction with the silver-haired man’s own, but now there is only silence. Even the sharp rage from earlier is fading, edges softening into something more like—confusion. The connection is still there, but it seems almost closed-off, like Sephiroth doesn’t even know it exists. And he’s just… standing there. Next to Zack.

If there’s anyone whose judgment Cloud trusts, it’s Zack’s.

Rufus raises a brow. “No worry of traps?”

“Not his style,” Cloud answers with a shrug.

After all, Sephiroth has no need for deception when he could effortlessly destroy anything, if he decides to. He kills almost casually and without a thought; he wouldn’t have spared that much effort to fool those he considers below him in a pointless, roundabout deception. No, he saves that effort for those he _especially_ hates, Cloud thinks bitterly, remembering how Sephiroth had toyed with him their last battle, driving Masamune through his flesh again and again in shallow cuts for his own sadistic pleasure.

Besides, if Sephiroth had wanted to cause harm, Cloud would have been able to _feel_ it. Cloud lacks the ability to control their mental connection, and so has by necessity grown very good at reading it. He’s very, very familiar with the feeling of Sephiroth’s cold, murderous intent crawling up his skin and whispering terrible promises in the back of his mind. There’s no way Sephiroth would have been able to hide it, even if he’d wanted to.

Rufus smirks. “Very good. Now that we have your approval, then, we can proceed.”

“My _approval—_ Rufus! You weren’t sure?”

He shrugs languidly. “What better way to make sure than ask you?”

“You,” Cloud says wearily, “are going to get seriously bitten in the ass one day, and I swear I am going to stand there and _laugh.”_

“Imagine that. The infamous brooding Cloud Strife, _laughing._ Surely the heavens will fall that day.”

“A shame you’ll be in too much pain to see it,” Cloud says. “What’d you even do to piss him off so much?”

Reeve coughs delicately from his position behind everyone else. “Rufus was proposing that they return once a week for checkups.”

Rufus opens his mouth to argue his case, but Cloud shakes his head before he can say anything. “No. That wasn’t part of the deal.”

“Cloud—”

 _“No,”_ Cloud says again. “You already did your tests. I’m not compromising on this.”

Subjecting them to more testing, more needles, more scientists—no. Not when that’d been what had caused everything in the first place.

“ … Very well,” Rufus concedes. “I’m trusting you to handle it your way, then, what with your… _special connections,_ Cloud.”

Cloud rolls his eyes at the phrasing. “Fine.”

“Your efforts are appreciated,” Rufus says. “We’ll take our leave now.”

Reeve gives them all a faint smile. “I asked Elena to pick up some supplies for you all. She should be back soon; why don’t you wait until then to leave?”

The broad, dark-haired man—Angeal, if Cloud remembers correctly—smiles back. “Thank you.”

Reeve dismisses it with a wave. “We’ve caused you trouble enough. It’s the least we could do. Cloud, call me if anything comes up, all right?” He pauses, then gives Zack a considering look. “By the way, Kunsel should be loading the airship in the back now, if you want to speak to him.” That said, he and Rufus both leave the way they came in.

Zack’s face lights up, but he doesn’t rush over like Cloud is expecting. Instead, he looks over at the other three Firsts uncertainly, then back at Cloud. He bites his lip. “Cloud…”

Cloud tilts his head. “What? Don’t you want to catch up with him?”

“Well, yeah, but of course I wanna be here with _you_ even more,” Zack says, and Cloud blinks, startled.

He’d considered Zack his best friend, back then, but he’d hardly expect Zack to feel the same. Zack had been affectionate with _everyone,_ and they’d only gone on a few disastrous missions together. Cloud wouldn’t dare call himself one of Zack’s close friends. Nowhere near close enough to drag as useless deadweight across a continent and a half at the cost of your life.

(Cloud hadn’t been worth it. Not as a failed infantryman. Not as a failed _experiment.)_

But inexplicably, Zack _had_ done it, simply out of the sheer kindness of his soul. This kindness must be what is holding him back from speaking with his friend, what is keeping him here with Cloud instead. Even now, Zack is too good to realize that his concern is misplaced, wasted on someone like Cloud, who only brings suffering and misfortune to those who somehow still see something in him. So Cloud firmly ignores the part of him that desperately doesn’t want Zack to leave and shakes his head. “Don’t mind me, Zack. Go.”

_(Go, leave me behind, like you should have all those years ago.)_

-

Zack frowns at Cloud’s words. Somehow, he feels like they have more meaning than simply telling Zack to go hang out with a friend, but he can’t for the life of him figure out _what._

Reeve’s mention of Kunsel had been relieving. After hearing that most SOLDIERs have either died or disappeared, Zack’s glad that at least one friend has survived. Coupled with seeing Cloud—it’s almost perfect. Only almost, because—

When he’d first caught sight of Cloud, Zack had almost launched himself at the blond, the urge to clutch tight to his lifeline and never let go burning in his chest, but then Cloud had looked away, face wiped blank of shock. Shuttered. Not an emotion in sight.

Just the way he’d been when they’d first met, cold and afraid and holding everyone at arm’s distance because he’d learned that having anyone closer would hurt him. Yet somehow, this is worse, seeing him revert to this after having coaxed him into flourishing with just a bit of tender love and care. If only Cloud would look back in Zack’s direction and flash him that cute, shy smile he always used to…

But he doesn’t. In fact, he seems to be determinedly _not_ looking in his direction. Or anyone else’s, really, as he’s staring at something apparently fascinating on the wall to his right.

Picking up on how Zack is at a loss for words, Genesis says, “There’s no need to pretend any more, dear. We’re alone now, and besides, we’re hardly of disparate rank anymore, are we?”

That’s right, Zack thinks, inordinately relieved. Cloud must be acting this way because he thinks they still want to keep their relationship a secret. But the wave of relief hardly passes before Cloud frowns again.

“ … Uh,” he says, chewing at his bottom lip in the way he always does when he’s uncertain or uncomfortable, and suddenly Zack realizes—

It’s been such a long time. Has Cloud replaced them with someone else? Is that why he doesn’t want to meet their gazes? Of course, they’d all been _dead,_ so there’s no reason Cloud should feel bad about moving on, but that would mean—

Zack suddenly feels very cold. Cloud had been the last to join their relationship, and it’d only been official for a few months before everything had gone to shit, but they’d known him for a full year before that, and Zack can’t imagine their relationship with a gaping Cloud-shaped hole in it.

Angeal reaches out instinctively to comfort, but then Cloud _flinches,_ and Angeal jerks back as if burned. Pain crosses his face and Zack can tell that he’s internally crumbling under the weight of _of course he loathes your touch, you betrayed him, you betrayed them all, you’re a monster you don’t deserve to reach out and comfort when all you do is break—_

In the deafening silence, Cloud’s whisper is jarringly loud. “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect—”

Angeal is quick to say, “No, it was my bad, I shouldn’t—I shouldn’t have—”

“No,” Cloud says, still breathlessly soft. “It’s not your fault. I’m kind of… on edge.” His gaze jumps frantically between Zack and Sephiroth, before he shakes his head slightly and steels himself, jaw firming in a reflection of his stubborn teenage self.

When he next speaks, Cloud’s voice is firm despite its quietness. “Right. Reeve said you guys remember up your… well, your deaths—I mean, Commander Rhapsodos didn’t actually die, but he was asleep—”

Genesis frowns and opens his mouth to object against the unexpectedly formal address, but Cloud bulldozes on, seemingly determined to finish speaking before he loses his nerve again. “I’ll be looking after you, so. I’m Cloud Strife.” Blue eyes flicker up to gaze at them, painfully blank of recognition. Almost as an afterthought, he adds, “… Nice to meet you.”

With no small amount of hysteria, Genesis says, “Is this some kind of sick _joke?”_

-

“I’m… sorry?” Cloud says blankly.

He’d been doing fine just moments earlier. Focusing on his conversation with Rufus, an irritating but familiar routine, had done wonders for keeping him grounded. But now, something about being in the room with just these four men is tearing all his barriers down, allowing all the emotions he’d tried so hard to clamp down on to bubble to the surface.

He thought he’d be able to hold it together, but this is _too much,_ seeing people who he _knows_ should be dead, who he _saw_ die, who he’d _killed,_ and the strange reactions of the people he _doesn’t_ know are making everything worse. He’s terribly confused and his head is beginning to ache something awful and he just wants to curl up into a ball to block the world out but he curls his hands into fists instead because _Sephiroth_ is here, and even without his mental presence battering at Cloud’s mind, his burning catlike gaze peels back Cloud’s skin to study his exposed innards, the cracks of his soul, pinning his frantically fluttering heart like a butterfly to corkboard and he _cannot show weakness—_

But there are four pairs of eyes boring into him, prodding and invasive, like they are searching for something, _expecting_ something, only for him to fall short, and more than one part of him wants to flee from their disappointed gazes.

Thankfully, he manages to salvage some semblance of steadiness. “I… I understand if you’d be more comfortable living with an ex-SOLDIER instead. I can go speak to—”

“No!” Zack nearly shouts. “No. We definitely want to live with you. Stay. Please?” His eyes are wide, pleading, lip jutted out just so in the iconic way that earned him his moniker.

“Zack, you can’t just speak for everyone else.” Cloud glances at the other three Firsts, stuttering on Sephiroth for a moment too long before he jerks his gaze away, back to the wall. The wall is safe. His nails bite deeply into the palms of his hands. “It’s fine—I know I’m not anyone you wanted. I’ll talk to Reeve. He’ll be able to set you up with one of the former SOLDIERs he has working for him.”

“No. It’s all right.” Sephiroth’s deep voice makes Cloud startle and his hands twitch for his sword, which is fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) loaded on the Shera along with Fenrir. He doesn’t look away from the wall, but he clenches his jaw as he catches Sephiroth’s every movement in his periphery, his instincts screaming fight or flight. “We are glad for the chance to speak with you, Cloud.”

There’s an open question in Sephiroth’s words, a question whose answer everyone else seems to await with bated breath, but to no little frustration, Cloud doesn’t know what it is. He feels like he’s sitting an exam without knowing what it’s even on.

“Cloud?” Sephiroth repeats, green gaze searching.

A shudder tracks up Cloud’s spine. He _can’t do this._ Not with the way Sephiroth’s voice gently caresses his name, so similar yet so different to how he’d once molested it, owned it, enveloped it entirely only to _tear it apart._

Desperately, he flings his gaze towards Zack. Zack with his large, gentle hands and large, gentle eyes and large, gentle heart. Zack, who can glance at him and know exactly what he wants to say when his words are missing, stolen from the hollowness just below his breastbone, choking his throat and gluing his tongue with empty _nothing nothing nothing._ Zack, who knows him inside out and who _he_ knows inside out because he’d been Zack, once; he’d pulled apart Zack’s skin and clutched the stolen identity to himself like a security blanket, crawled inside to fill his own lack of _Cloud_ with Zack’s breath and Zack’s bones and Zack’s blood.

No, Cloud can’t do this, but he also _has to,_ for Tifa and the kids and AVALANCHE, who he’d sworn to protect. For Aerith, who has entrusted him with the Lifestream’s safety. Even for Rufus and his Turks, for Reeve and the WRO, who have always turned to him when they need help the most. And most of all for Zack, whose legacy he’d promised to carry on, and who he’d promised himself to never shame again by hiding behind as a crutch. It’s that thought that finally tears his gaze from the dark-haired SOLDIER as he shakes himself with the mental beration _pull yourself the fuck together, Strife._

“Right,” he finally says, mouth set in a firm line. “Well, then. If you’re sure. We’re living together in the same house for the foreseeable future, so…”

Immediately, the SOLDIERs’ gazes all shutter at once, and he knows he’s given the wrong answer.

_Failure._

“Look,” the SOLDIER who is probably Angeal says, looking oddly pale and shaken, “is it all right if we—take some time to discuss it privately?”

Cloud simply nods, unsurprised by their hesitance. He hadn’t anticipated, however, the chest-deep ache of some misplaced hurt. He _knows_ they don’t want to be forced to rely on someone who reminds them of ShinRa, much less a former trooper. It would be better if they were with someone they know, someone they trust; to expect any other reaction would be foolish. And yet some part of him, one he thought long dead and buried, yearns for his old idols’ acknowledgement, their approval.

He ducks his head as he turns and steps in front of the door, letting the fall of his bangs hide his expression. He waits for a second after it slides open, almost hoping for Zack to reassure him with a bright laugh and a gentle tug to a spike of his hair, but there’s only silence. So instead he strides out, straight-backed under the weight of the stares pressing heavier than any sword against his shoulders, and doesn’t look back.

-

“What was _that,”_ Genesis demands the moment the door shuts with a resounding _hiss._

“I don’t know,” Angeal says, shaking his head. He sits down heavily on the floor, head falling into his hands. “Gods, he looked at us as if—as if we were—”

“Strangers,” Sephiroth finishes softly. “No—he looked at you two as if you were strangers. Me, on the other hand… he could not even bear to look at me. I can’t imagine he could ever forgive me after…” He trails off.

Zack agitatedly ruffles his own hair. “He looked so tense and closed off the whole time. It can’t be easy for him, seeing us alive after all these years… how long did they say it’s been?”

“Fourteen years since the end of the Wutai War, if the newspapers are to be believed,” Genesis says.

“Do you think he doesn’t want anything to do with us anymore?” Zack asks.

“I did not get that impression from his words,” Sephiroth says. “He almost seemed more concerned with _us_ not wanting _him,_ in fact, as if we had judged him inadequate. And as we said before, he did not seem to even recognize either Angeal or Genesis.”

“I agree,” Genesis says. “Even if he was pretending because he resented us for some reason, there would be at least _something._ And yet—his eyes were completely blank of recognition. Something isn’t right here.”

There’s a pause as they all contemplate that. Then, Zack says, “Isn’t one of the symptoms of mako poisoning memory loss?”

“Amnesia, hallucinations, nausea, paranoia, depression—” Sephiroth cuts himself off. “Amnesia,” he repeats. “Did Cloud… truly forget about us all?”

There’s another long silence.

“Well,” Zack says with forced cheer, “we’ll just have to ask him, then, won’t we?”

“Rufus must be using him as a form of leverage over us,” Genesis says. “You all saw how he analyzed our reactions to Cloud’s name. Just think—if he has Cloud working for him, we’d never be able to stomach betraying him, but Cloud’s lack of memories prevents his loyalties from being compromised in turn. I don’t know whether to be irritated by how easily they’re manipulating us or reassured by their faith in our moral inhibitions.” He glances wryly Sephiroth. “Not so much monsters anymore, are we?”

“They will regret trying to keep us in line in this manner,” Sephiroth says, eyes narrowing dangerously.

Angeal hums thoughtfully. “I don’t think it’s quite like that. We all know Cloud and his sense of integrity; I doubt that’s changed even with his memory loss. He isn’t the type to let someone like Rufus walk all over him, especially if he feels it’s the wrong thing to do. You saw how they argued earlier. He doesn’t defer to him like an employee would with his boss, and he’s wearing civilian clothing, not a uniform. And you all saw his eyes, how bright they are. This isn’t some hostage situation—he’s got quite a bit of mako in him, now, and I’d bet you anything he knows how to use it.”

That’s true. Cloud’s always had a steely backbone of sheer snark and stubbornness when provoked, but it’d still been shocking to see their shy little Cloud, not much taller than he had been a decade ago, verbally sparring with _the_ Rufus Shinra in such a brusque, confident manner and not even batting an eyelid. He’s truly come into his own, all these years they’ve been gone.

“Well, then,” Zack says, “we’ll just have to figure out what’s up with how he’s involved with Rufus and the WRO. And even if he does work for them, he’ll definitely fall for our charms, right? We can even try to help him remember. We’ll be living together now and all, so there’ll be plenty of opportunities.”

A sly grin slides onto Genesis’s face. “We _will_ be living together… think of the opportunities indeed. Inadvertently stumbling into his room as he lifts his shirt over his head, about to change… Bumping into him after a shower, a flimsy towel the sole object protecting his virtue, water slowly dripping from his hair and chest… Watching him come down to breakfast shirtless, artfully tousled, yawning and rubbing his eyes in that deliciously innocent way of his… Who knows, we may even be able to jump-start a few of his memories with… certain activities. Mmm—”

Angeal smacks the back of Genesis’s head. “You’ve been reading too many trashy 10-gil romance novels again.”

“Don’t lie, Angeal. You know you enjoy those images just as much as I do.”

A hint of red sneaks its way across Angeal’s cheeks. “Regardless, it’s dishonorable to think of Cloud in such a… predatory manner when he doesn’t even remember us! It’s—harassment! Sephiroth, back me up here!”

But Sephiroth isn’t listening. “Hmm… shirtless Cloud…” he muses with distant, half-lidded eyes. He then nods sharply. “An efficient maneuver with multiple benefits. Killing two birds with one stone, you might say. I approve.”

“All right! Operation: Get Cloud Shirtless is a go!” Zack cheers.

Angeal groans.

-

“Stop pacing. You’re makin’ me dizzy, yo.”

Cloud does not stop pacing, the tread of his boots loud in the empty hallway. After he’d stepped out of that awful conversation, he’d been left with nothing better to do but pace outside the doorway. Rude must have left sometime when they were talking inside the hangar, since the only one here is Reno, who is taking massive amusement in observing Cloud’s distress.

“Ifrit’s balls, blondie, what’s got your panties in a bunch, yo? They reject you or somethin’?”

Cloud stops and shoots Reno a venomous look.

“Ooh, all right then, sensitive topic…”

Cloud resumes pacing. He counts his steps—one, two, three, past the steel doorway, pivot, one, two, three back.

“They totally did, didn’t they.”

“Reno.”

“Hey, their loss—if they don’t want yer first-class piece of ass, my bed’s always open, yo.”

Cloud rolls his eyes.

“Well? What do you think, yo?”

“Of the four of them? You were in Reeve’s office when they spoke to them, weren’t you?” Cloud answers, confused.

“Well, yeah, but I wanna know what _you_ think, yo. I mean, I’m assumin’ that since the building and half the city ain’t in pieces by now, Sephiroth ain’t a whack job anymore,” Reno says. “‘Least not the misanthropic psychopath kind, yo. But otherwise—how are they?”

“ … Encouragingly sane,” Cloud decides to say. “If a bit weird.”

“You ain’t in any position to be throwin’ stones at other people’s weirdness, yo,” Reno says. “But how so?”

“They just don’t… act like I expected,” Cloud says. “I never really knew them, though, so I guess that’s my fault for making assumptions.”

“S’that so?” Reno says, uncharacteristically thoughtfully.

Cloud frowns at his strange behavior. “ … Yes?” He halts his restless movements as he picks up on the light patter of footsteps echoing down the hall. “Elena’s here. And… Rude too.”

“I always forget how crazy SOLDIER hearing is, yo,” Reno comments, before tossing a lazy salute in his coworkers’ direction as they round the corner. “‘Sup, Laney, Rude?”

“Don’t call me that,” Elena says, carrying what looks like several months’ worth of clothing in large shopping bags. Behind her trails Rude, wheeling a stack of large cardboard boxes on a flat-bed cart. “What’re you two standing around out here like a bunch of dorks for?”

“Playin’ watchdog.”

“Got kicked out.”

“Well, help me carry these,” she says, plopping the largest two bags in Cloud’s arms, “and you’ll have an excuse to go back inside. Let’s get going.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ik i said it would be a romcom but cloud decided to be an angsty little shit so. oops. it's ok though we'll get there eventually (i hope)


	3. Chapter 3

When Kunsel sees them approach with even more boxes, he groans exaggeratedly. "What are you even loading onto this airship? The past six were already all groceries. I get that you guys are five men with First-level enhancements, but it's not like Costa doesn't have its own market."

Cloud inspects the two bags in his hands. "Clothes, apparently."

"Lots of clothes," Elena agrees. "And bedsheets."

"Working electronic appliances," Rude says.

"Lube and condoms, yo," Reno says cheerfully, and Kunsel chokes.

Cloud, well used to ignoring Reno, just says, "We'll finish up for you. Why don't you go catch up with Zack and the others?"

Kunsel's mouth twists oddly underneath his helmet. "Uh. I don't think I should interrupt their conversation. But… I'll go, uh, tell them to get ready to leave soon. Yeah."

As Kunsel leaves, Cid yells from inside the Shera, "Hurry the fuck up over there, will ya? You've booked me for the whole day, but that doesn't mean I don't got better places to be!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, old man!" Reno yells back, but they quickly get to work.

-

“All jokes aside,” Angeal says, looking at them all sternly, “trying to help Cloud remember is one thing, but we have to be careful. We most definitely can’t tell him that he used to be in a _fivesome_ with us.”

“Must we really carry on in such a foolishly roundabout manner?” Genesis says. “That seems liable to create unnecessary misunderstandings. If he knows outright of our relationship, we’d be free to court him as much as we’d like. Isn’t showering Cloud with as much affection as possible more likely to help him remember?”

“Gen, he’s clearly nowhere near comfortable enough around us for that,” Angeal says. “His sense of self-worth has always been concerning, but now it seems even worse than the first time around. You all saw how our reassurances earlier only caused him more confusion and even mild distress. Judging by his reactions, at this point in time, being overt is only going to push him away. We need him to feel safe around us before anything else, even if that means going slower than we’d like.”

“I’m sure just _telling_ him would do wonders for his self-confidence.”

Sephiroth shakes his head. “I agree with Angeal. Cloud’s self-confidence is something that can be built up in many different ways, so we shouldn’t forget our own fallacies when determining our approach. There’s no way we can in good conscience just outright ask him to accept us back with the way he looks at us now. In my particular case… perhaps he will never stop seeing me as a threat, but if there is any chance I can take to earn back his trust, to change his perception of me… I don’t care how long it takes. I will take it.”

“Sephiroth, you are a traitor to our shirtless cause,” Genesis says.

“We must also consider Cloud’s own health,” Sephiroth continues, ignoring Genesis’s statement. “No one really understands the effects of mako poisoning. What if he subconsciously blocked out his own memories due to trauma? Who knows what kind of damage we could cause his mental state if we are reckless.”

“Oh, shoot! There’s no way we can tell him, then!” Zack says, alarmed. “But… how does this affect the plan?”

“There’s no reason we can’t continue with what Zack has so aptly dubbed ‘Operation: Get Cloud Shirtless’, even if Cloud himself is unaware of our objective. We simply can’t be as… shameless as Genesis’s original vision.” Sephiroth gives Genesis a wry look.

“So what you’re saying,” Zack says thoughtfully, “is that even though we can’t _tell_ Cloud that he used to be in a relationship with us, but we can still _show_ him so he gradually figures it out for himself, and that way we won’t be dropping a huge scary bomb on him all at once? I don’t know, Cloudy isn’t the best at picking these kinds of things up. But… I guess that just means we’ll have to be _really good_ at giving him obvious clues, then.”

“I take my words back,” Genesis says. “Sephiroth, you are a champion of our shirtless cause.”

Angeal frowns disapprovingly. “Genesis—”

“Oh, no, Angeal,” Genesis says, “this is your just deserts. It’s a compromise, as always. You put the idea in their minds that we cannot tell Cloud the truth, so this is how we shall reveal the truth ourselves. You said it yourself that we can help him remember as long as we are careful. What’s the shame in a little harmless flirting?”

“Harmless? … Fine,” Angeal relents. “But it’d better be just that. We have to respect Cloud’s boundaries. We may as well be strangers to him; we need to ease into it. Be subtle. Act like gentlemen. Don’t be too forceful with your advances, and don’t engage in any sort of intimate activities with him without his explicit permission. We don’t want to scare him off.”

“Speaking of that,” Zack says. “You know, when I talked to Cloud about Kunsel, he looked at me like—like he couldn’t understand why I was even giving him the time of day. And when he said he knew that we wouldn’t want him—I don’t know. I wanted to hug him until I squeezed all the bad thoughts out of his head, but I also wanted to stab whoever was responsible for making him think that way about himself. Is that bad?”

Genesis laughs and gives Zack a fond peck on the cheek. “That’s normal, pup. I felt the same way. Though I, for one, would rather eviscerate them alive, then burn their innards before their very eyes. Stabbing is much too merciful a way to kill someone.”

“No one is killing anyone,” Angeal says firmly. “Stabbing or burning or otherwise.”

“As always, love, you’re quite the buzzkill,” Genesis says, but his expression is affectionate.

Angeal cocks a brow. “Well, I didn’t say we couldn’t teach them a lesson, now did I?”

An awkward cough sounds from behind them. “Uh, killing people aside,” Kunsel says, “they’re almost done loading the Shera, so… you might want to wrap your conversation up. Sirs.”

-

Genesis watches Cloud carefully as the blond man leans against the wall, arms crossed and eyes closed, sleek and languid in a way he’d never have been fourteen years ago. He doesn’t seem to mind the way it begins to rumble and vibrate behind him as the airship takes off.

Despite his simple civilian clothing—black cargo pants, a soft cotton shirt, sturdy combat boots, black gloves, a leather jacket with a logo declaring _Seventh Heaven_ emblazoned on the back—his every movement screams that he is a seasoned fighter. Sixteen-year-old Cloud had been like a kitten stumbling on its too-large paws, endearing and clumsy and, for a few rare moments, hinting at a future deadly grace. This Cloud has more than grown into this grace—he doesn't glide like Sephiroth does, as if the very earth beneath his feet is unworthy of his attention, but rather prowls like a predatory cat, intimately aware of his surroundings and comfortable in any terrain.

The very air radiates with tension whenever the pair's eyes happen to briefly meet, and Genesis is inexplicably reminded of an old Wutaian legend he'd heard, once, of the tiger and the dragon locked in eternal combat, the dragon proud and ferocious in its dominion of the skies, the tiger no less formidable despite being bound to the earth.

There is no denying that Cloud is _different—_ he looks older, of course, lacking the awkward, coltish limbs and soft, rounded cheeks of his teenage self. Yet somehow, he is ageless, untouched by the time that has elapsed. He has a sort of ethereal look about him—not the unearthly, beautifully inhuman cast Sephiroth has, but something inexplicably _too_ human. The way the light plays on his delicate features, caressing him like a favored child, reminds Genesis of Zack’s flower girl and the way you can just _tell_ she is special, one of the Planet’s chosen, except where the Cetra is warm, earthy stability and the green scent of new life, Cloud is the endless, untamed depths of sea and sky, wild and unfathomable and free.

They may have agreed to work towards restoring Cloud’s memories, but now, in the face of this strange, new Cloud, only Zack is brave enough to approach and say, “Hey, Cloudy.”

Cloud opens one impossibly blue eye. “Hm?”

“You feelin’ okay? Your motion sickness not acting up?”

Cloud smiles faintly. “I’m fine. I’ve been on the Shera enough to be used to it. Thanks for worrying, Zack.”

Something sorrowful passes over Zack’s face for a brief moment, but he resolutely tucks himself into Cloud’s space and slings an arm over his shoulders, ignoring the way Cloud suddenly freezes. “Of course I worry about you, Cloud, why are you thanking me?”

“Oh,” Cloud says. “ … Sorry?”

“Hey, you’re not supposed to say sorry to that, either!” Zack plasters on a bright grin and ruffles Cloud’s hair.

“Zack!” Cloud protests, batting his hands away. Finally, he relaxes, and his expression changes to something more like fond exasperation. “Well, what am I supposed to say, then?”

“Hm…” Zack rubs his chin, then grins and boops Cloud on the nose. “How about, ‘I love you too, Zack!’”

Cloud is silent for a beat. Then he rolls his eyes and says, “You know everyone loves you, Zack.”

Zack looks torn between upset that Cloud hadn’t picked up on his message and proud that he’s managed to draw Cloud at least a tiny bit out of his shell.

To be fair to Cloud, though, Zack is as open and free with his declarations of love as he is with his hugs. Cloud has no reason to believe he means it in any way other than casual friendship. If only things were so easy, Genesis thinks ruefully.

He won’t deny that he’s jealous of the way Cloud looks at Zack and Zack alone, like he’s hung the moon and the stars, salvation and absolution all together at once, but he also notices the way Cloud is almost hesitant to speak to him, a strange uncertainty coloring each word, and he knows that must hurt in a very different way. Perhaps his and Angeal’s situation is better than Zack’s or Sephiroth’s. Better to start as a complete stranger than an idol distanced by awe and regret or an enemy tainted with blood and fire.

Angeal takes mercy on the ensuing awkward silence and asks, “Do you work for Rufus and the WRO, Cloud?”

Cloud looks relieved at the change of topic. “He wishes,” he says with a wry quirk of his lips. “Reeve and I are friends… of a sort, so they just ask me to run a few errands now and then, since my job takes me all over the place—I run a delivery service.”

“A delivery service?” Genesis says, raising a brow. “Are they so shorthanded that they need someone unaffiliated to do their work for them?”

Cloud shrugs. “They need every enhanced man they have to help with rebuilding and monster patrols, but travelling’s pretty dangerous for the average person these days. They know I don’t like associating myself with the WRO or neo-ShinRa, especially in public, so they ask me to help out this way instead.”

“But what about this job?” Angeal says, watching Cloud closely. “Running errands is one thing; it seems rather uncharacteristic of someone like Rufus Shinra to trust someone who doesn’t explicitly work for him with something as important as keeping an eye on the four of us.” Of course, they all know why Rufus chose Cloud, but what does Cloud himself think? Rufus’s decision _would_ seem rather strange to anyone who is unaware of their past.

But Cloud only huffs a gentle laugh. “It does, doesn’t it?” Before he can say anything else, a buzzing noise sounds from his pocket, and he pulls out a sleek black device. A slight furrow forms in his brow as he checks the screen, and he stands up straight, pulling away from Zack. “Sorry, but I gotta take this call.”

He brings the PHS up to his ear, wincing as a scolding female voice filters through. Genesis catches Zack turn away innocently, Sephiroth fix his gaze on the far wall, and Angeal avert his eyes politely as they all pretend to not listen in on the conversation.

_“Cloud Strife! Where in the nine realms have you been? You said you’d be home in time for lunch.”_

“ … Sorry, I got caught up in something for Rufus—”

 _“Rufus again?”_ The woman sounds supremely disapproving. _“Cloud, you know you don’t have to go along with his schemes, right?”_

“I know, but this time it’s actually important.”

_“That’s what you said last time.”_

“Okay, that’s true,” Cloud concedes. “But this time it’s even more important.”

_“Fine then. When will you be back?”_

“ … Uh.”

_“Cloud! Marlene and Denzel were looking forward to spending more time with you. What happened to family dinner?”_

“I’m sorry, Tifa,” Cloud says helplessly.

_“How long, Cloud?”_

Cloud chews his bottom lip. “I don’t know. At least a few weeks. Maybe even a few months.” At the telling silence from over the line, he says, “Tifa—”

A heavy sigh. _“It's all right. I understand.”_

“Are—are you sure? The kids—”

_“I'll explain it to them. They won't be happy, but they'll understand, too. After all, if this is so important to you…”_

“To me…?” Cloud looks a bit surprised, but then the corners of his lips tug upwards. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “This is important to me. Thanks, Tifa.”

 _“You’re pulling bouncer duty for the next_ year _for this.”_

Cloud chokes. “Tifa, you know they never take me seriously when they’re drunk—”

 _“Too bad,”_ Tifa says cheerfully. _“It’s only fair if you’re leaving us alone to run things while you’re off doing Rufus’s dirty work. Barret’ll thank you later. Bye!”_

“Bye,” Cloud says back, shaking his head as he slips the PHS back in his pocket.

This _Tifa—_ her name sounds vaguely familiar. But more importantly, is Cloud living with her? And he’d mentioned _kids—_

Of course the cosmic deities conspire against them; they may have returned heroically from the grave, but the prince has been already snatched away behind their very backs. Genesis is tempted to march up to Cloud and tear off his gloves to inspect for a ring, but Angeal’s sharp warning look stays his legs.

“Tifa,” Zack says, voicing what is on all of their minds. “Tifa Lockhart? Your childhood friend from Nibelheim, right?”

“Yeah,” Cloud says. “She was…” He trails off, glancing at Sephiroth. “Our guide. To the reactor.”

Sephiroth nods, a look of concentration on his face. “I remember… She wore a cowgirl outfit.”

A startled laugh tears its way from Cloud’s throat. “I can’t imagine how she’d react, knowing that your only impression of her is that outfit.”

Sephiroth only frowns, though, and says, “Cloud.”

A strange look passes over Cloud’s face, but it’s wiped blank before Genesis can try to pick it apart. “ … Yes?”

“Are you…” Sephiroth tilts his head, then corrects himself. “No. You _are._ You are the leader of AVALANCHE, aren’t you?”

Zack chokes. _“What?_ How’d you come to that conclusion, Seph?”

Sephiroth folds his arms behind his back and begins to pace as he speaks. “First, you are close friends with several of its members. You said it yourself that you and Reeve Tuesti are friends. Miss Lockhart mentioned Barret Wallace. The pilot of this aircraft is Cid Highwind. Not to mention Miss Lockhart herself was in the papers many years ago, slated for execution due to her involvement in AVALANCHE’s activities."

 _So that's why her name sounded familiar,_ Genesis thinks.

"Second," Sephiroth continues, "Rufus Shinra himself defers to you. That argument you had—you were not bargaining with him. There was no power struggle; you clearly had the upper hand. No ordinary member of AVALANCHE would have that sort of sway over him. Third, you said that you dislike being seen supporting the WRO’s activities. However, you don’t object to the activities themselves, which means that the only reason you might be acting this way is to prevent your influence from biasing public opinion. This is also why you’ve avoided having your name or image published in any of the news. Fourth, we all originally assumed that the one designated to speak with us on past events was Second Class Kunsel, but we've only seen him once. He’s likely not even on this airship. Which means the one expected to brief us on these events, the one most familiar with them, is _you._ Lastly…”

He halts and turns to face Cloud head-on. “You track my actions not only as an enemy would, but as an _equal._ If anyone were to be trusted to be our keeper, who would it be but the man who defeated me personally?”

“Cloud?” Zack says, looking stunned in the face of so much evidence. When Cloud doesn't deny any of it, he says, “So you really are… why’d you hide it from us?”

Cloud shrugs. "I didn’t hide it from you. It’s just… not very important. Why would I bring it up?”

Genesis balks. “How could you consider defeating Sephiroth multiple times in battle _not very important?”_

“Because it’s not. We did what had to be done, and moved on. That’s all.”

"Such feats should not be hidden in shame, little hero," Genesis chides.

“I’d rather you not call me that.”

“What, a hero?” Genesis frowns. “Why, what’s wrong with that? It’s quite high praise, I’ll have you know—”

“I know,” Cloud says. “So don’t call me one."

Then he closes his eyes and settles back against the wall, and they all know the conversation is over.

-

But apparently it's not, because when one of the mechanics comes to fetch them for a very late lunch, Cloud hesitantly calls, "Sephiroth."

Sephiroth halts. "What is it?" he tries to say as gently as possible. Somehow, he gets the feeling that if he isn't careful, Cloud will turn around and flee, like a skittish chocobo.

Cloud glances warily at the others, and Angeal quickly says, "We'll wait for you there, okay? Take your time."

When the door shuts behind them, Cloud meets Sephiroth’s gaze squarely for the first time and asks, "Does it make you uncomfortable?"

Sephiroth blinks, bewildered. "Does what make me uncomfortable?"

"Me being the one who killed you," Cloud says. "I'll admit that some part of me hoped you wouldn't figure it out. It probably doesn't feel real great, being forced to live with your murderer."

" … No," Sephiroth decides. "It's comforting, actually. Having someone who is able to stop me while we are living among so many civilians…" If he were to have a sudden bout of irrationality in the midst of a densely populated tourist city—Sephiroth’s chest tightens. “I don’t trust myself anymore. But I trust you.”

“O-oh.” Cloud’s eyes widen and dart away, which is a bit disappointing, but the hint of pink that colors his cheeks makes up for it.

"Cloud, I'd like to take this chance to apologize," Sephiroth says. "I already could never make up for what happened in Nibelheim. As for afterwards… I may not be able to remember, but perhaps that makes things worse. I will never truly know what terrible things I did that cause you to…" _Look at me like I am your tormentor, your worst nightmare, your greatest fear._ " … react to me like this."

“Actually,” Cloud says, shifting uncomfortably, “I… I should apologize, too. My reactions haven’t been fair to you. Earlier, you said I look at you like an enemy, and… I’m not proud of it, but I do. After watching you interact with the others, I know you’re different, but you still look and sound and _move…_ well. I’m working on it. But I just wanted to let you know that you shouldn’t feel guilty just because I can’t get over myself.”

“Don’t blame yourself for your very reasonable response towards my own actions,” Sephiroth says, frowning, but Cloud sighs, running a hand through his hair, and Sephiroth is startled by the incongruity of seeing such a familiar action on the wrong person.

"The newspapers don't do a good job of explaining much, do they?" he says.

"They simply said that my death in Nibelheim was fabricated by ShinRa, and that I was responsible for summoning Meteor. When I was killed by AVALANCHE, the Lifestream was able to counter it. But Zack shared with us the events of that day, and I am aware that I did die in the reactor, and of the manipulations that were set up by Hojo through his falsified research notes and JENOVA’s mental influence. I was so angry when I learned that Mother had been betrayed by humanity, but I should have realized that my anger was amplified by her. I know better than most that the sins of the father should not weigh on the shoulders of the son.” Sephiroth's lips curl into a sneer at the thought of his own _father._

Cloud studies him for a long while, face unreadable. Then he says, “JENOVA was… something the Cetra called the Calamity from the Skies. As far as I can tell, she was a sentient virus that fell to the Planet over two thousand years ago. She could influence and sometimes even outright control those who carried enough of her genetic information.”

“J-cells,” Sephiroth murmurs in realization, and Cloud nods.

“She was sealed away in one of the Cetra’s bodies, and… well, that’s why ShinRa scientists mistook her for one of them. Her cells were injected into your real mother, a scientist named Lucrecia Crescent, while she was pregnant with you. Project S, it was called. Those research notes you read were planted by Hojo because he _wanted_ you to fall under JENOVA’s influence.”

Only a man such as Hojo would ever desire these kinds of things, Sephiroth thinks ruefully.

Cloud continues, “You never had any of the physical symptoms of degradation, but the psychological effects—well. You read about the Geostigma outbreak in the papers, right? It’s also caused by J-cells. Paranoia, madness, hallucinations, depression, suicidal thoughts, irrational bouts of anger… these are all recorded symptoms of Geostigma. In Nibelheim, you were… already very lonely,” he says, soft and sad. “So when _she_ called… you answered. She told you she loved you, and then she asked you to burn the world.”

“And I said yes,” Sephiroth says, feeling numb. “It’s true. I really did think that she… but now, somehow, it’s easy to see that she lied. I am glad you stopped me.” He tries to make it sound as heartfelt as possible, but Cloud still winces. “But what of after Nibelheim? How did I come back to life? What did I do?”

“Maybe it’s better to not know,” Cloud muses, eyes distant. “Let the past rest. We… never really knew where Sephiroth ended and where JENOVA began. It didn't really matter. We had bigger issues to worry about—he was kind of trying to destroy the world, after all. And now… it still doesn't really matter. JENOVA’s dead, you don’t remember, and I don’t get the feeling that you, the Sephiroth that’s here and now, would try to destroy the world in a whim.”

Sephiroth shakes his head. “Regardless of who was ultimately responsible, I would much rather be able to understand what truly happened rather than wonder about it for the rest of my days. Furthermore, it would dishonor the trials the people who fought me went through, particularly your own, if you allowed me to be absolved of my sins due to pure ignorance. My actions—”

“Were committed under JENOVA's influence,” Cloud says gently. “You may as well have been an entirely different person. Believe me, I’m the last one who should be pointing fingers for things done while under someone else's control.”

Sephiroth frowns. “I should have fought harder to resist her thrall. My emotions compromised my judgement and I allowed myself to be manipulated by a clearly malicious scheme that resulted in the deaths of thousands.”

“Even if your power makes the consequences of your actions much greater, you're still human, Sephiroth. You're allowed to feel hurt and angry and confused. What's not okay is isolating yourself and allowing all that to fester like you did in that library. Find someone you trust and—okay, I’m not the best person to say you should _talk_ to them, but… it helps a lot for me personally to have someone just be _present._ My friends had to practically beat that lesson into me.” Cloud’s mouth quirks sheepishly. “They’ve pulled me out of a lot of tight spots, and there's no way I wouldn't be a huge wreck without them. I'm sure Zack or Angeal or even Genesis would be glad to help you with anything. It's what friends do.”

“I see,” Sephiroth says. “And you?”

“And me what?” Cloud asks, confused.

“It may be presumptuous of me, but I would be proud to consider you a friend, Cloud,” Sephiroth says. “For you to consider me as so in return would be of the highest honor.”

“Oh,” Cloud says. _“Oh.”_

Sephiroth waits patiently, watching the faint blush on Cloud's cheeks stain slowly darker as comprehension dawns.

“I—I… of course. I just never—never thought… well. I'd be honored, too, Sephiroth. Really.” A small smile grows on Cloud’s lips.

It's beautiful, Sephiroth thinks. Like a new beginning.

(He doesn’t even realize that Cloud has successfully distracted him from finding out what he’s done until much later.)

-

Genesis twines his fingers against Angeal’s as they sit at a long metal table beside the cramped galley, food long finished, and Angeal squeezes back.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “They’ll be fine.”

“Who says I’m worrying?” Genesis scoffs. “Sephiroth can very well take care of himself.”

On Angeal’s other side, Zack says, “But they really are taking a long time…” He looks like he’s fighting the urge to cling nervously to Angeal’s hand, too, so Angeal presses a kiss to the side of his head.

“I’m sure they’re just talking. They have a lot to talk about, after all.”

“Cloud has a lot to talk about with _all_ of us,” Genesis says in that particular way of his when he tries not to seem like he’s sulking.

“Yes, but he doesn’t know that, does he?”

“Which is why we ought to just _tell him.”_

Angeal sighs. “We’ve been over this, Gen. We agreed that—”

“You mean _you_ agreed. If not for the matter of Cloud’s mental wellbeing… well, I am still remaining silent under protest, thank you very much.”

“What about Tifa, then? We need to make sure we’re clear on how they’re involved before we proceed with anything. If he really is content in another relationship with children and everything, we have no right to disrupt that.”

Genesis scowls thunderously. “Of course. _Tifa.”_ The sheer amount of loathing he manages to fit in those two syllables would be amusing if it wasn’t such a worrying issue.

Zack groans, dropping his head onto the table with a _thunk._ “Cloud doesn’t act much like it, but he loves kids, you know? And it’s not like we can give him any…”

“Now, we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions,” Angeal says.

“Jump to conclusions?” Genesis says incredulously. “They live together! There are children involved! She was scolding him like an entitled housewife! I think the evidence is quite conclusive.”

“Let’s just wait until Cloud gets here and we can ask him, all right?”

Genesis snorts. “Two random strangers plus Zack, asking him about his personal life and possible marriage to his childhood friend? Who was the one fussing about being subtle, again?”

Angeal frowns. “It’s a legitimate concern to ask about. I wouldn’t want to keep _anyone_ away from their spouse for an extended period of time just to play Rufus’s watchdog.”

“It is kinda strange,” Zack says. “He didn’t even ask her for permission before agreeing to help Rufus with us. That’s an important thing for couples to do when they’re not used to being sent on missions and stuff, right?”

“He does deliveries,” Genesis reminds him. “She would be used to him leaving for indeterminate periods of time.”

“Never for this long, though,” Zack says.

“Are you on my side or not?”

Zack blinks. “There are sides?”

“There are no sides,” Angeal says firmly. “We’ll ask Cloud, and that’s that.”

“What do you want to ask me?” Cloud says from behind them.

“Cloud!” Zack says, springing up from his seat to tackle him with a hug, lifting him clean off his feet. “You’re here!”

Cloud blinks down at the toes of his boots, suspended several inches above the ground. His startled expression hasn’t changed from so long ago—he still looks like a thunderstruck kitten, big eyes and raised fluff and all. “Yeah,” he says. “ … Sephiroth is too.”

“I _am_ feeling rather left out of this warm welcome,” Sephiroth says dryly.

“Aww, Seph,” Zack says. He easily shifts Cloud to one arm and extends the other. “I have two arms for a reason.”

Sephiroth looks at Cloud in askance, and much to Angeal’s surprise, Cloud meets his gaze evenly and cocks a brow as if to ask, _You gonna join or not?_

As Sephiroth shuffles in for a hug, Genesis leans toward Angeal. “It seems Sephiroth’s got his issues with Cloud all sorted out,” he murmurs into his ear. “Looks like the rest of us need to get a move on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love tifa i think she’s great (but gen doesn’t)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> psa: don’t put your hands on stoves kids, that’s not safe

Cloud hisses and brings a hand up to shade his eyes as he steps out of the Shera. Costa del Sol may be famous for its refreshing sea breeze, but here on the landing strip, the air is hot and stagnant, and the concrete and steel reflects the blinding sunlight. As the others exit behind him, he hears Zack exclaim, “Fuck, it’s hot!”

“Of course it is, it’s summer,” Angeal says.

After a moment of debate, Cloud pulls off his jacket and gloves. He stuffs his gloves in his back pocket and loops his jacket around his waist, glad that he’d happened to put on a white shirt this morning. Avoiding getting sunburnt isn’t worth suffering in this sweltering heat, especially since they’ve still got to unload everything.

With five enhanced men and several of Cid’s crew, it doesn’t take long for them to get everything in a truck. It’s too full to carry anyone else, though, so in the end they have to walk over to the Villa, Cloud wheeling Fenrir rather than riding to stay with the group, and Zack spends a good amount of time exclaiming loudly over the motorcycle. Despite their strange entourage, very few people actually stare at them as they make their way down the streets. Perhaps it’s because it’s the hottest time of the day, so most people are down at the beach or inside a shop rather than out on the streets. Or maybe it's because the people here are long used to the weird shit tourists pull.

Either way, Cloud is glad. And also really fucking sweaty. Taking off his jacket and gloves had not been enough.

After they finish unloading everything in reverse, he surveys the veritable mountain of boxes stacked in the center of what is probably considered the parlor, hands on his hips. The lack of ten years' worth of dust covering every surface of the room is surprising, but very nice; Rufus must have asked some of his lackeys to do some clean-up. It sure saves them a lot of time. “By the way,” Cloud says, finally remembering, “what was it you wanted to ask me?”

He’s getting better at it, this balancing act on a knife’s edge between the him of here and now and the swamp of emotions from a time long lost. He’s well acquainted with the feelings of being a failure, an outcast; his childhood in Nibelheim had not been kind, and his time in the infantry had only exacerbated it. Something about these four men tugs that mindset from so long ago to the forefront, makes him feel like he’s all of sixteen years old again. But it’s easier to push away now that he knows to anticipate it. There’s still something almost _expectant_ in their gazes every now and then, but they don’t seem to look at him like he’s strange, foreign, like he’s brought the world crashing down around their ears anymore, and that in itself works wonders in helping to rationalize away the fear of disappointing, of inadequacy.

There’s a conspicuous pause from behind him, then Angeal says, “Are we causing you and Miss Lockhart much trouble by taking up so much of your time?”

“Tifa?” Cloud says. “Not really. She’s got Barret to help her with the bar and the kids. I was originally planning on working from here, but Rufus transferred a lot of gil into our account… He probably doesn’t want me to leave. She should be fine for at least the next month or so.”

“I deserve a cut,” Cid grumbles from around his cigarette. “I’m a pilot, not a goddamn errand boy. Havin’ to deal with this clusterfuck is bad enough, and now I have play bellhop? Fuck.”

“Thanks for helping unload, Cid,” Cloud says.

Cid mutters something uncomplimentary under his breath.

“So… Cloudy,” Zack says, trailing out the vowels of his words. “You got hitched _and_ got busy these past few years? I’m kinda jealous.”

Cloud’s jaw drops. _“What.”_

Cid guffaws. “Goddamn priceless! Wish I had a camera so I could take a picture of your face!”

“What do you—shut up, Cid—what do you mean, Zack?”

“I dunno if I’m jumping to conclusions or anything, ‘cause you don’t seem to have a ring, but it sure sounds like you got married to Tifa and had a bunch of kids…?”

“Uh.”

“This is what you get for adopting way too goddamn many brats, Cloud,” Cid says. “I told you you should have stopped at the two.”

“There _are_ only two,” Cloud says. “And one of them is Barret’s. Just because Denzel likes to hang out with the other kids doesn’t make them—”

“They’re your personal flock or some shit, don’t lie.”

“Cid, they’re not _sheep.”_

“So… you _aren’t_ married?” Zack says, sounding rather concerned.

“Technically, Tifa and I are domestic partners,” Cloud says. “We decided it was worth it for the tax benefits.”

The room is suddenly very silent.

“ … But no, we’re not romantically involved,” Cloud adds, feeling a bit awkward. “Uh. Why?”

“No reason!” Zack says quickly. “Just curious. Y’know, just—wonderin’ if our Spiky became all grown up while we were gone!”

“Okay then,” Cloud says, a bit dubious, but he lets it go nonetheless.

“Well,” Angeal says, just a tad too brightly, “now that we’ve finally moved everything here, we should begin unpacking. We’ve got quite the venture ahead of us.”

“Then it’s about time I hauled ass,” Cid says.

“Thanks again for your help, Cid,” Cloud says. “I’ll transfer some gil to you when I have the time.”

Cid grunts. “Don’t worry about it. I was just jokin’. You’re gonna need all the gil you can get to deal with these assholes.” He throws a wave over his shoulder, then stomps out, leaving only the five of them standing in the living room.

“Well, his attitude was quite _lovely,”_ Genesis says.

Cloud shrugs.

Zack heaves a tired breath. “Wow! We didn’t even do much, but I’m beat! It’s way too hot here. I just wanna hit the beach!”

“We can go to the beach later, pup,” Angeal says. “We should at least clear out all the boxes before we do anything else.”

“Man, where do we even start? Why is there so much _stuff?”_ Zack groans, running a hand through his hair.

Cloud scans the boxes again. “A lot of it is non-perishable food, if I’m remembering right. There are also a few bags of clothing that Elena bought. There are probably kitchenware and toiletries somewhere, too. And the really big boxes… Rude said they were home appliances.”

Genesis raises a brow. “Why would we need those? Are the ones currently installed truly that old?”

“Old, no. Outdated, yes. We don’t use mako for power anymore, remember?”

Angeal hums thoughtfully. “Everything else seems easy enough to get through, but I’m afraid we won’t know much about installing appliances, much less if they're a new kind.”

“I’ll handle that,” Cloud says. “You guys sort through the other stuff.” He ruthlessly crushes the instinctive urge to add, _if you’re okay with that._ This is his own villa; they can damn well do what he tells them to, and no amount of old hero worship is going to change that.

Thankfully, no one comments on him essentially giving them orders. Instead, Zack just says, “You sure you don’t want any of us to help you with that? I mean, I dunno how much help we’d be, but you shouldn’t have to do such a big job alone.”

Cloud shakes his head. “It’s not that much work. Anyways, the master bedroom’s past the kitchen. Bathroom’s down the hall to the left, across from the living room. There are three bedrooms and another bathroom upstairs. Feel free to put stuff wherever you feel is best.” Piece said, he grabs a box—the washing machine, he thinks—and lugs it with him down into the basement without another word. The others don’t say anything more, and when he passes back through the living room to fetch his toolkit from within Fenrir’s compartments, they’re idly discussing the merits of bow-shaped versus spiral-shaped pasta, so he assumes everything’s fine.

To be honest, he’d like the time to himself to really sort through his thoughts, to figure out _why_ he’s feeling so off-balance around these four.

Zack, he understands. It’d taken a while for him to recognize it, but he’d been pulling the guilt complex thing that Tifa hates so much. Zack had made his own choices during their five-year ordeal, and Cloud had done his best to honor those choices this past decade; dwelling excessively on guilt and his own inadequacies wouldn’t have done Zack’s sacrifice justice. Dealing with this is no different—in fact, it should be actively better in all respects, given that Zack is _alive._ It isn’t fair to Zack for Cloud to rebuff his attempts at extending his friendship. No matter what Cloud himself may think, Zack has decided that he is worthy of his time and attention, so Cloud better damn well _make_ himself worthy of said time and attention. It’s even _more_ of a waste if it goes unreciprocated, after all.

Sephiroth makes sense too; just _seeing_ him had been enough to dredge up old and frankly terrifying memories, leaving Cloud overwhelmed and out of sorts. The time they’d spent in the Shera has helped him grow used to his presence, but now, the more that his instincts realize that Sephiroth isn’t actively trying to destroy the world, the easier it is for him to fall back into his old hero worship and (slight, okay, very slight) crush, which he honestly thinks might be objectively worse. He can’t believe he’d blushed and stuttered in front of _Sephiroth._ Gods.

But for all of them—the way he automatically looks to them for reassurance, the way a frown on any of their faces has him wanting to replace it with a smile instead, the way his failure to meet their expectations had felt like the actualization of a long-held fear, the way their rejection had created a gaping hollow in the bottom of his stomach, just—the way their opinions matter to him _so damn much_ is _weird._ Mere hero worship can’t explain the intensity of these emotional reactions.

Even after he finishes setting up the washing machine, then the refrigerator, then the oven, then starts on the stove on top, he’s no closer to his answer, but Genesis pokes his head into the kitchen and announces, “We have a dilemma,” so he sets aside his contemplation for another day.

Cloud settles back on his haunches. “What’s up?”

Genesis approaches him and inspects the mess of screws and cut wires scattered across the floor with mild interest. Then he says, “The clothing we’ve been provided with—none of it is in your size.”

Cloud nods. He’d expected it; buying clothes for him when he already has some at home is a waste of both resources and money, which basically directly opposes Reeve’s MO. His clothing doesn’t quite fit the weather here—he doesn’t think he even owns a single pair of shorts—but he isn’t here on vacation anyways. “It’s fine. I’ll call Rufus and Tifa later and ask them to send some of my things from Edge when a Turk comes to checks up on us.”

Because even though Rufus hadn’t mentioned anything about it, it’s really only a matter of _when_ rather than _if._

Genesis raises a brow. “And in the meantime? You can’t wear the same clothing for the next few days.”

Cloud’s honestly had much worse, but he supposes Genesis and the others are the ones who will be smelling him, so he says, “The stuff here is fine for now. Oversized clothes never hurt anyone. If that’s all…” He turns back to the metal box he’d been fiddling with before Genesis had stepped in, carefully letting some of his MP trickle in.

“What is that?” Genesis leans in, the mild interest from earlier shifting into clear intrigue. “Are you—casting?”

“Kind of.” Cloud sets the box down and points up at the small, jagged green crystals nestled safely inside the grooves of the four burners atop the stove. “See? They’re mako shards.”

Genesis frowns. “But those are useless.”

Cloud’s lips quirk up. “To ShinRa, maybe. They’re far too weak to hurt people. But that makes them perfect for household chores. We mainly use Lightning, but Fire and Ice come in handy too now and then. This is a gas-emulating stove instead of an electric one, so it uses Fire.”

“But how would those who are untrained be able to consistently use them? Shards are much more difficult than complete materia to channel through.”

“For humans, yeah,” Cloud says. “It took a long time to make a closed system where an initial input of MP could be stored for later use and controlled with dials, so people could buy them ready to use without needing to cast themselves—that’s the box, by the way. But with their natural aptitude for materia, the Cetra wouldn’t have had a problem with that.”

“Are you saying that this is based on the Cetra way of life? _Fascinating._ But I’ve long heard rumors that overuse of materia is taxing on the Lifestream and the Planet itself. Perhaps it would have been fine back then, but is this safe, with how drained the Planet is now?”

“Only forcing the Lifestream to create artificial materia hurts the Planet. Natural materia are fine. Besides, if you look in any mako fountain, these shards are _everywhere.”_

 _“Fascinating,”_ Genesis says again. “From whence did this idea come, though? I’ve read quite a bit on materia use as well as records of Cetra civilization, and nowhere did I see anything of this.”

“Well, actually,” Cloud says, “my Ma… she was a shard-picker. She taught me a few trade secrets.” The soft, rounded accent of his hometown slips into his words as he smiles fondly, proud to have been able to reclaim this part of his past.

“Shard-pickers—you are referring to those who used to venture to mako springs and fountains where natural materia form, correct? I’ve heard it was quite the difficult occupation, with high risk and low reward. And once ShinRa started producing artificial materia en masse, they fell into obscurity. Complete natural materia may be extremely powerful, but they form quite rarely, and the small, incomplete ones are less efficient than the artificially-created ones, which are much cheaper and accomplish the same job. And the jagged crystals that occur most commonly are—were thought to be—useless.”

Cloud nods. “That’s right. We actually used the shards to make Nibel-style jewelry, but even those stopped selling after a while. ShinRa… really wiped out a lot of culture wherever they went, you know? When I finally remembered, I told Reeve about it. We must’ve worked on this for at least five years… but it really paid off.”

“I see,” Genesis says. “But… how did you know that the Cetra used to use them in this manner?”

Cloud tilts his head, considering. He doesn’t know what compels him, but somehow, he feels like he can _trust_ Genesis. Maybe it’s the way he listens so seriously to Cloud’s explanations. Maybe it’s the way he seems to have a genuine passion for materia. Or maybe it’s the way the light from the window catches in the strands of his auburn hair, gilding them with an orange-red fire that resonates with the core of the crystallized mako a few feet away. Whatever the reason, Cloud says, “Listen. They’ll speak to you.”

Genesis’s brow furrows. “Listen—?”

Cloud points at the crystals again, and Genesis slowly, hesitantly puts his hand on the stovetop. A moment passes, then two, and he frowns and starts to draw his hand away. “I don’t feel any—”

“Shhh,” Cloud says as he stands, swiftly grabbing Genesis’s hand and setting it firmly back in place. _“Listen.”_

And as Cloud’s hand lays over Genesis’s, he can see the wonder dawn on his face as he hears what Cloud can, the way the crystals sing of hearth and home, of ancient stories shared in front of the fire, of _warmthprotectionlovefamily._

-

 _“Oh,”_ Sephiroth says, dropping a stack of towels as he brings a hand up to his head.

“Seph?” Zack says, scrambling over to lay a hand on his arm. “What’s wrong?”

Sephiroth shakes his head. “ … It’s nothing. Genesis is taking an unusually time to inform Cloud on our clothing situation, isn’t he?”

“I knew he had ulterior motives for offering to be the one to tell Cloud!”

Sephiroth gives Zack a dry look. “We all did.”

“Ouch,” Zack says. “Way to make a man face his shortcomings head-on, Seph.”

“One should not willingly hide from the truth,” Sephiroth says, then rises to his feet. “Once I put these towels in the bathroom upstairs, we should be about done. Why don’t you go let the others know, then get ready for that trip to the beach you’ve been chomping at the bit to have?”

Zack shoots to his feet. “Yes! Beach time!”

-

“Cloud! Gen!”

Cloud starts at the loud call and jerks away, staring blankly down at his hand. He doesn’t know what possessed him to grab Genesis’s hand. He _never_ initiates physical contact, much less with strangers.

Genesis sighs. “What is it, puppy?”

“We’re goin’ to the beach! Go get ready!” Zack bounces excitedly in the doorway.

“I _have_ been wanting to spend some time relaxing,” Genesis says. “Cloud?”

Cloud looks up, startled out of his thoughts. “What?”

“The beach!” Zack bounces some more for emphasis. “Wanna come to the beach with us?”

He shakes his head. “Still gotta finish setting up the stove.”

“Aww, can’t you do it later? We don’t want to leave you here all alone,” Zack says.

“We have to cook dinner,” Cloud points out. “And it’s not like I have a swimsuit.”

Angeal steps into view behind Zack. “Why don’t just the three of you go, Zack? I’ll stay with Cloud and get dinner ready.”

Zack pouts. “Y’all are getting your quality time with Cloudy before me!” But he turns and dashes off anyways, calling, “Seeeeeph!”

Genesis shakes his head, looking fond, then gives Angeal a peck on the cheek as he follows Zack at a much more sedate pace. “Have fun, dear.”

“Oh—” Angeal shoots Cloud a worried look, and Cloud stares back calmly. It’s not like he hadn’t seen the way they’d been holding hands earlier.

When it seems like Angeal isn’t going to say anything else, though, Cloud sits down to pick up where he left off with the stove, asking idly as he twists some wires together, “So, what's the plan for dinner?”

A pause, then Angeal settles on the floor next to him. “I was thinking something simple. Maybe some stew? We’ve got plenty of canned goods, and it shouldn’t be as easy to taste the difference in quality if they’re cooked in a stew. We can go shopping for fresh produce tomorrow.”

“Stew in this weather?”

“According to Wutaian medicine, hot soups are especially good for the body in summer,” Angeal says. 

“I have a Wutaian friend who’d call that a load of shit,” Cloud says, because Yuffie most definitely would, “but I’ve been told I make a mean Nibel stew. So that sounds good.”

Angeal hums. “It’s nice that there’ll be someone to help me in the kitchen now. When’d you learn to cook, anyways?”

“When?” Cloud says, a bit puzzled by the strange wording. “A year or so after Meteorfall, I guess. Tifa said that if I kept bringing home strays, I’d better start learning how to take care of them. And on days when I don’t have deliveries to run, she’s even busier than I am, with the bar and everything, so I take care of the kids.”

“The bar?”

“Seventh Heaven.” Cloud nods at his jacket, slung over the back of one of the chairs by the dining table. “She’s the owner.”

“That’s why she asked you to work as a bouncer,” Angeal says in realization, then blushes a bit. “Ah—”

Cloud laughs. The bashful expression on such a large, stern-looking man is surprisingly adorable. “It’s fine. I know you were all listening. Barret usually does it, but sometimes I get dragged into doing it when he’s busy or Tifa’s pissed off at me.”

“Do they truly not take you seriously?”

Cloud shrugs. “The drunk ones usually don’t pick up on the mako eyes. And I’ll admit I don’t look particularly intimidating otherwise.”

Angeal shakes his head. “Anyone with even the slightest bit of training can tell how dangerous you are simply by the way you move.”

“Thanks,” Cloud says, smiling. “They usually aren’t. But it makes my job easier in a different way, I guess.”

Then Zack runs in, bare-chested with a large towel slung over his shoulders. He twirls. “Angeal! Cloudy! How do I look?”

“Very nice, Zack,” Angeal says.

Cloud takes a moment to take in the rows of vibrantly colored fish printed on his blue swim trunks, but his eyes are drawn upwards to the strong planes of Zack’s chest. He traces its lines with his eyes, surprised by the lack of bullet scars, the tan skin smooth and unmarred.

“Cloudy?” Zack asks again, and Cloud jumps and tears his eyes away, feeling oddly like a guilty child caught red-handed.

“ … Colorful,” he finally says.

Zack grins and ruffles Cloud’s hair. “It’s okay to be awed by my very awesome abs! I guarantee that one hundred percent of people do indeed find them very awesome!”

Cloud rolls his eyes and bats Zack’s hands away. “As if.”

“Stop harassing him, Zack,” Genesis says as he steps in, followed closely by Sephiroth. Their clothing is much less ostentatious, both wearing black swim trunks and solid-colored t-shirts, Genesis’s red to Sephiroth’s black. Cloud feels rather thrown by the sight of Sephiroth in something other than his usual battle attire.

“Yeah, yeah,” Zack says. “We’ll be going now. Enjoy your quality time together! Bye!”

“Don’t forget sunscreen,” Cloud calls on instinct as they file back out into the parlor.

“ … But I do not burn in the—”

“Yes mom! Bye mom!”

The door slams shut.

Angeal chuckles, shaking his head. “When you’ve finished with that,” he says, gesturing at the metal box in Cloud’s lap, “why don’t we go find some clothes that fit you somewhat? Then we can both shower before getting started on dinner.”

“I’m done, actually,” Cloud says, lifting the stovetop to place the box beneath, then gently sets the metal covering back in place. He puts away his tools, then gathers all the cut-off wires into a pile and scoops them up. “Just let me put these somewhere safe.”

After he finishes cleaning up, Angeal takes them to the master bedroom. “We assumed you’d be more comfortable with your own room, so Gen and I took this one. I don’t know what Zack and Sephiroth chose to do upstairs, so you’ll have to ask them when they get back.”

Cloud nods.

“I think the one closest in size to you is Gen, so we’ll look through his clothes first,” Angeal says, pulling one of the drawers in the dresser open. “He’ll be glad for the excuse to go buy more, anyways. Not that we aren’t satisfied with what we were provided—his tastes just tend to run a bit… fancier than most.”

Cloud runs his hands over one of the shirts inside. They _are_ a bit simple in design compared to those from before Meteorfall, with solid colors and basic cuts, but they’re lightweight and absorbent, finely woven and soft to the touch. Clothes this high in quality are hard to come by, particularly in Edge. He rubs it between his fingers again, relishing in the smooth feel, and is half-tempted to bring it up to his cheek. “Rufus must really be trying to butter you up,” he murmurs.

“Hm?” Angeal says, rummaging through a different drawer. He pulls out plain black boxers and dark blue sweatpants. “I don’t know if these will fit, but the boxers are elastic, and the sweatpants have a drawstring, so it’s worth a shot.”

Cloud takes the boxers and unfolds them, skeptically eyeing the width of the waistband, then their length. He holds them up to his waist. “Do you think these are big enough to just wear as shorts?”

“No!” Angeal says, a bit loudly. He coughs. “No. You should definitely wear pants over that.”

“Hm,” Cloud says. They look like they’ll extend to right above his knees, and he really doesn’t want to have to deal with it if they ride up underneath his pants. But if Angeal insists… “I’ll try these on after I shower, then. I don’t want to get them dirty right now.”

Angeal nods and hands him the sweatpants and a towel. “I’ll go use the shower upstairs, then. Feel free to take anything else if those don’t work out for you.” He grabs some things from the other side of the dresser, then leaves.

After grabbing one of the very soft shirts from the drawer he’d been looking in, Cloud makes his own way to the bathroom. It’s directly connected to the bedroom, large and full of polished stone and marble. There’s a full-on tub with a set of shiny metal taps in the center of the room, set deep enough in the ground to look like a miniature pool, but Cloud ignores that temptation in favor of the shower. He sets the towel and new clothes on a bench against the wall, then gladly strips out of his own sweaty clothing, letting it drop in a careless heap onto the floor. He’ll deal with it later.

The cold water is a relief from the heat, but a startling reminder that Cloud needs to do something about the boiler in the basement eventually. He pushes the thought from his mind to spend a moment just standing in the spray, relishing in the way it seems to wash away the stress from the events of the day—and has it really only been just a day? It feels so much longer.

Then he reaches for one of the bottles of shampoo, a white one with elegant silver writing declaring _Banora White._ He flicks it open and blinks, surprised by the light, pleasant smell that wafts up. Most fruity soaps are overly strong and make him sneeze, but this one is tasteful and only faintly sweet. It smells like apples with an underlying whiff of something sharp and spicy. It smells like—

 _Like Genesis,_ some part of him says cheerfully, and the thought of walking around smelling like the charming, fiery man has him slamming the lid back shut and placing it back on the shelf, heat rising to his cheeks.

The other bottle looks vaguely ShinRa-issue, despite the fact that ShinRa-issued things shouldn’t exist anymore. When he pumps a bit onto his finger, it’s also light and pleasant, but it has a clean, masculine scent, and it smells like—like Sephiroth’s hair, like Zack’s hugs, like Angeal’s warm smiles—

Cloud reaches for the bar of soap. It smells like nothing other than cleanliness, so Cloud gratefully lathers up his hands and uses that to wash his hair and body instead.

Then he makes a mental note adding shampoo on the list of things to ask Tifa to send.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aka in which cloud has a second sexual awakening over some fucking soap


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> most of you probably know from my other fic(s) i’m actually sefikura trash, so i tried very hard not to let it show in this fic but rip in the process i somehow inadvertently ended up making everything strifesodos biased... shit
> 
> (i'm sorry i swear zack will get his turn soon)

The cool breeze tugs at the strands of Sephiroth’s hair as he watches Zack dance through the waves, leaping over each crest and whooping whenever he gets sprayed. The man’s gaze is soft in a way few are privileged enough to see, and Genesis is quite proud to consider himself one of them.

Sephiroth is the only one of his lovers who doesn’t have a range of designated pet names, a remnant of their old rivalry. Genesis uses anything from _love_ to _dear_ to _honey_ for Angeal, his first partner. _Pup_ or _puppy_ and even a fond _insufferable menace_ every once in a while for Zack. And _kitten_ or, more frequently, _little bird_ for Cloud. But Sephiroth is always Sephiroth.

Genesis doesn’t imagine he’d much appreciate something like _honey_ or _puppy_ anyways; though he knows his lovers value verbal expressions of affection, Sephiroth places much more weight on nonverbal actions. His own are more than enough to convey every bit of his devotion towards them, so Genesis, a man of words through and through, does his best to return the favor. But now, even with the fond way he watches Zack, there’s something sad to his eyes that prompts Genesis to bump his shoulder gently with his own and say, “How are you holding up?”

He doesn’t bother asking what’s wrong. The answer to that question is already quite clear.

Sephiroth just sighs. “Even if he doesn’t remember, Cloud has the same habits.” When Genesis raises a brow in question, he elaborates, “He refuses to tell me of anything I did after Nibelheim. If he were anyone else, I’d say he is afraid that I will remember and resume my past activities, but I recognize the look in his eyes. He—”

“He doesn’t want you to worry,” Genesis finishes. “He knows if he tells you, it will only result in you feeling even guiltier, particularly as there’s nothing you can do to change past events. But I’m sure he’s reassured you quite a bit that it’s not your fault.”

Sephiroth’s chin dips. “He has.” _But I don’t believe it_ goes unsaid.

Cloud had done that kind of lying by omission often, back in their ShinRa days. They’d see him walking through the halls with a limp, or a split lip, or a bruised cheek, or all three, and if any of them questioned him on what happened, he’d evade like no tomorrow, skillfully changing the subject, and if pressed further, use excuses of clumsy accidents during training, or fights with a drunken slummer while on patrol, or not wanting to put a damper on their limited time together by speaking of unpleasant things, and, when all else failed, that it’d only get worse if they intervened on his behalf.

“And I suppose that overly calculating brain of yours is just driving itself crazy coming up with all the hypotheticals, isn’t it?” Genesis says.

Sephiroth’s brow creases. “The more information I am unaware of, the worse it gets. You are aware.”

“What _you_ need, Sephiroth,” Genesis purrs, trailing a finger up Sephiroth’s chest, “is something to take your mind off all that terrible noise in your head, even if just for a moment. Some stress relief, you might say.”

Despite the clear interest in his eyes, Sephiroth’s hand catches Genesis’s. “We are in the middle of a public beach.”

“So?” Genesis scoffs and brings his other hand up to tangle in Sephiroth’s hair. “The sun’s beginning to set; most of them are about to leave. Besides, they’re not looking our way. Just think of this as another one of those empty offices you loved so much in HQ. Those had windows, didn’t they?”

_“Genesis.”_

“Hush. You’ve never been to the beach on vacation, have you? Let me educate you on the intricacies on how to not get caught having beach sex.”

Before he can draw Sephiroth into a deep kiss, though, he’s interrupted by a familiar pair of arms slipping around his torso. “Too late,” Zack says, grinning cheekily against the back of Genesis’s neck. “You’re already caught.”

“Zackary Fair,” Genesis gripes. “You’re getting my shirt wet.”

“Aw, it’s not like you’re gonna need it for this. I’ll even help you out of it if you want.”

“You, pup,” Genesis says, “make a compelling argument.”

He barely pauses in his nipping at Genesis’s skin to say smugly, “I know, right?”

“Don’t leave a mark,” Sephiroth says. “If Cloud sees—” He’s cut off by the fabric of his own shirt as Genesis tugs it over his head, and makes an affronted noise even as he raises his arms to help ease its journey off his body.

“Keep going, Zack,” Genesis says. “We want Cloud to see.”

“Okay!” Zack chirps, clearly not suffering for agreeing.

And Sephiroth sighs and allows himself to be swept away.

-

The shirt goes down to Cloud’s thighs, but its length is made up for how soft it feels against his skin. This must be why people want to be rich, he muses. They get nice things.

The real problem is whenever he tightens the drawstring on the sweatpants enough for it to not slide straight off his hips, it bunches up uncomfortably around his waist, and it drives him _mad._ Not to mention how easily the rolled-up hems around his ankles _un_ roll, and he ends up tripping over excess fabric every three minutes. Maybe he doesn’t have the right to be picky, being gifted with someone else’s clothing as he is, but if he has the choice to go with or without these pants…

 _Sorry, Angeal,_ he apologizes in his head. Not that he knows why the man is so opposed to it. The boxers _do_ function perfectly well as shorts with how loose they are, and maybe it is bad manners to waltz around in underwear in front of strangers, but it’s not like you can even tell they’re boxers with how long his shirt is, and it’s his own house, and he’s pretty sure Zack is going to end up doing the same sooner or later, probably sooner rather than later—

Decision made, he folds the pants up and tosses them back into the drawer. Maybe Angeal won’t even notice; Cloud’s definitely not going to bring it up himself.

If only he were so lucky.

When he walks into the kitchen, the first thing out of Angeal’s mouth is, “You decided to not wear pants.”

It’s worded so frankly in such a flat tone of voice Cloud isn’t sure if he’s being scolded or if it’s just a passing comment. So he just says, “Yes…?”

Angeal closes his eyes and sighs, then mutters something long-suffering under his breath that sounds vaguely like _well, at least I tried._ Then he goes back to chopping carrots as if nothing happened.

Cloud blinks, nonplussed. Finally, he says, “So… is there anything I can help with?”

Angeal gestures at the pile of vegetables sitting on the counter. “The beef’s already simmering, so why don’t you help me cut the vegetables? Thank the gods potatoes and onions don’t spoil easily, so we got them fresh.”

Cloud nods and gets to work. Angeal is a smooth, efficient partner; time passes quickly in easy silence. The rhythmic chop-chop-chop of knives against the cutting boards is rather soothing, and after they scrape the cubed vegetables into the stew, then sprinkle in the spices, there isn’t much to do other than wait.

Cloud sits at the kitchen table, idly watching Angeal stir the pot every once in a while. He’s changed into a loose wifebeater that reveals the strong muscles of his arms and upper back, and the way they shift beneath his skin as he moves is oddly fascinating. Zack’s got a similar build, if less bulky, and though it’s disguised by how tall he is, Sephiroth is awfully broad, and even Genesis’s coat stretches tight over his shoulders, despite how he clearly specializes in materia. Cloud’s never looked like _that,_ even back in the days where they were fighting for their lives, and before he realizes, he finds himself asking, “Do all SOLDIERs look like you do?”

Angeal looks up. “Look like me how?”

“Not you specifically, just—after watching the four of you for a while—” Realizing how creepy that sounds, Cloud cuts himself off and resists the urge to clamp his mouth shut. Now that it’s already out, he might as well continue. “You’re all…” There are many things he wants to say—broad, muscular, unrealistically attractive—but he decides on the safest one. “ … Abnormally tall.”

Angeal raises a brow. “Abnormally? We are all over six feet tall, yes, but I’d hardly call that _abnormal.”_

Cloud scowls. If that’s a jab at his height—

“Is this about the sweatpants? There’s no shame in being short, you know,” Angeal says, a teasing smile on his face.

“Excuse you,” Cloud says. “Five-eight is _average.”_

Angeal has the nerve to _laugh_ at him. “Unfortunately for you, that may be true for men who are unenhanced, but average height for the enhanced male is six-two.”

“ … Really?”

“Mako injections are basically steroids, except they directly affect your genetic makeup,” Angeal explains. “There’s quite a lot of muscle and bone growth involved in the enhancement process, which is why the initial injection is always administered between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, the period of the most physical development for teenage boys. Most SOLDIERs end up getting at least six or so inches taller, oftentimes more. Considering your height when you were sixteen, you did grow quite a bit less than usual…” He trails off thoughtfully.

Cloud frowns. “I feel… kind of cheated now.” Really, Hojo fucks around with Cloud’s body for over four years, and he can’t even do anything actually useful like make him a few inches taller?

“Well, like I said, there’s nothing wrong with being short,” Angeal says as he lifts the ladle up to his lips to taste-test. “Besides, it’s rather cute.”

Cloud chokes. _“Cute—?”_

“Oh, look,” Angeal says in the exact same bland tone he’d used to comment on Cloud’s lack of pants, “the stew’s done.”

Cloud opens his mouth to protest indignantly, because Angeal can’t just casually brush over calling him _cute_ like a small fluffy animal or some shit without there being _repercussions,_ but then the front door bursts open.

“Honey, darling, we’re home!” Genesis sings.

“In the kitchen!” Angeal calls back. When Genesis practically sashays in and presses a quick kiss to Angeal’s cheek, he says, “Well, someone’s in a good mood. So am I honey or darling?”

“I’ll call you whatever you want, dear,” Genesis purrs back.

Angeal raises a brow. “Was the beach truly that refreshing?” His gaze drops to a suspicious red mark on Genesis’s neck. Then Zack stumbles in with a silly grin on his face, closely followed by a less-stern-looking-than-usual Sephiroth, and he says, “ … I see it was.”

He sounds supremely unimpressed. But unusually, he doesn’t seem to be upset over how his boyfriend clearly had some form of sex with two other men, and suddenly, that intimate-looking group hug the four of them had shared in the room with the newspapers seems much more layered.

“Aw, lighten up, ‘Geal! You should have gone. It was a lot of fun!” Zack says.

“And leave Cloud here all by himself?” Angeal’s voice is still mild, but he somehow manages to sound even _more_ unimpressed. "I expected better of you all. Particularly you, Sephiroth."

The levity in the air instantly vanishes. Cloud shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

Zack frowns. “Okay, I admit I shouldn’t have said that, but you know that’s not fair, Angeal.”

“We’ve all been under quite a lot of stress lately,” Genesis says, bristling defensively. “We simply had to let loose a bit. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

Angeal sets down his ladle with a harsh clatter. “In this situation, how can you even be thinking of—”

Sephiroth clears his throat. “We should not be discussing this here. It’s unfair to Cloud.”

Zack wilts. “You’re right, Seph. Sorry, Cloud.”

" … I’ll just leave," Cloud says awkwardly, rising from his chair. He's very clearly an outsider in this discussion.

Zack catches his arm. “Cloud, you don’t have to.”

“It’s fine, Zack,” Cloud says, and tugs his arm out of Zack’s grasp.

The moment he steps out into the hall, he hears Angeal hiss, "Now look at what you've done!"

"What _we've_ done?" Genesis’s voice rises indignantly with each word. "Look at what _you've_ done! Everything was fine until you started spouting your uptight—"

"Gen, Angeal, please stop," Zack begs.

"I will not! Angeal needs to realize that he, in fact, does _not_ always know best! Just because Cloud is here doesn't mean we have to put everything else on hold! In fact, I’d say that acting like there’s nothing between us would be worse than—”

"Lower your voice." Sephiroth's voice is jarringly soft in contrast. "Cloud will hear you."

 _"Good,"_ Genesis spits. "Let him. Maybe it'll get us further than this idiotic song and dance has so far."

 _"Quiet."_ The indisputable command in Sephiroth's voice has even Cloud freezing in place halfway up the stairs. In the resulting silence, Sephiroth's next words are clear despite their low volume. "We must reevaluate our priorities. It's been but a day, and the issue with Cloud has already driven such a severe rift between us. We need to sit down and take time, more than that small amount in the hangar earlier, to really go over what we…"

The sting of rejection is both expected and irrational, but no less painful for it. Unable to bear listening any longer, Cloud slips soundlessly up the last few stairs, and Sephiroth's voice fades to nothing.

Upstairs is dark and silent, curtains drawn and lights still nonfunctional. The first bedroom Cloud checks has a pile of things stacked neatly on the center of the bed. The second has an explosion of clothing already scattered across the bed and floor, but Cloud can't even muster a smile at something so typically _Zack._ He slips into the third, shutting the door gently behind him.

Cloud's bedroom is still. Empty. Cold, even. Suddenly, he just feels so damn exhausted, tiredness seeping deep into every bone, and he falls onto the bed and buries his face in the pillow.

He does not cry. He has no reason to, after all.

-

_Cloud runs._

_In the corner of his eye, he catches the impression of heat, of the color red. Of fire, passionate and consuming, but he’d never been afraid of being burnt before, not until—_

_“Cloud.”_

_Cloud halts._

_“I’m leaving.”_

_He clutches at his heart as it shatters in his chest, but pieces of_ worryfeardoubtconcern _ooze through his fingers and splatter all over the floor—_

_“Come with me, little bird. Let’s break free from this cage together. The others… they would not understand. But you do, don’t you? The feeling of never being quite good enough. Of being oppressed by this Goddess-forsaken company. Of a world that abhors you, of hope for nothing but a somber morrow—”_

No, _Cloud wants to scream._ Stop. You’re hurting yourself.

 _But all the other hears is_ no.

_“ … So be it.” A swirl of black feathers, a retreating back. The sour taste of regret and anger and disappointment. “Tell me, my friend, who is the true traitor now?”_

_Suddenly, his surroundings shift, and he stands in a large, echoing building of metal beams and groaning pipes._

_“Cloud! Don’t let Hollander get away!”_

_With no choice but to obey, Cloud runs again, the weight of his rifle heavy against his shoulder. The stomp-stomp-stomp of his military-issue boots is loud against the cement floor, and his mouth twists bitterly at the pervading feeling of his own_ uselessness.

_He runs, until another voice says behind him, “This isn’t something you should see. Goodbye, Cloud… I truly am sorry.”_

_White feathers rain, and as his vision drains black, Cloud screams unheard,_ Why do you all always push me away? Why won’t you trust me? Why won’t you let me _help?_

_The floor falls away from his feet, and he blinks and looks down, suspended in the air by the long blade protruding from his gut._

_“Because,_ Cloud,” _Sephiroth purrs, driving Masamune in deeper, “You are insignificant. Worthless. What could you ever hope to do?"_

_“Cloud.” A wet cough. “Finish him off… for us.”_

(I can’t.)

_“You have to. Clo—”_

-

“—ud. Cloud, wake up. Cloud—”

Cloud’s eyes shoot open, phantom pain still echoing throughout his body.

The gleam of silver hair in the moonlight. Green eyes, catlike in the dark.

His sword—where is his _sword—_

As if in response to the desperate panic thrumming through his veins, his heart fluttering wildly like a trapped bird in his ribcage, Tsurugi is suddenly in his hands and pressed firmly up against Sephiroth’s neck in less than half a second, and the man’s head falls back to rest against the wall, exposing the long, pale column of his throat in surrender. “Cloud,” he says again, beseechingly, and it overlays with the voice that curls dark and malicious around the word _puppet_ in Cloud’s head.

Cloud presses Tsurugi up harder, and a trickle of vibrant red beads slowly down its edge.

_“Cloud.”_

A thunder of footsteps up the stairs. A loud bang as the door is thrown open. A clamor of familiar-unfamiliar voices.

“What’s going on?”

“What was that loud thump?”

“Is everything all right?”

“Holy shit, _Seph—”_

“Cloud! Cloud, what’s wrong—”

“Cloud, calm down—”

“Cloud.” Strong hands fall onto Cloud’s shoulders, pushing them down from their tensed position. “Cloud, buddy. It’s me. It’s Zack. Just—calm down, okay? Put the sword down.”

“Zack?” Cloud rasps, voice hoarse as if he has been screaming for hours. But he doesn’t move his sword away, nor does his glare ever waver from those terrible, hated eyes, more familiar to him than his own name.

"Cloud, please, you're scaring us," Zack begs.

"I knew we shouldn't have left him alone after—”

"Be quiet, Genesis—"

Sephiroth leans forward, uncaring of how Tsurugi bites even deeper into his throat, and Cloud flinches away, instincts _screaming—_

Silver hair engulfs his vision as warm arms wrap him in a hug. Sephiroth murmurs something indistinct as he runs a hand through Cloud’s hair, voice a low, soothing rumble against his ear and chest. In the end, it’s the gentle scent of Sephiroth’s hair as it tickles his nose that brings Cloud back to the present, a diluted version of the shampoo from his shower earlier. Before, Sephiroth had never smelled like much more than a ghost, all bitter smoke and blood, but here, now, pressed up close against his skin, Cloud can pick out the salty scent of sweat and the sea from the events of the day as well as something deeper underneath, musky and natural.

“Shit.” Tsurugi drops from his numb fingers, hitting the floor with a clatter as he draws his suddenly-trembling hands close to his chest in an attempt to still them. He twists blindly, fighting to escape the embrace. _“Shit.”_

Sephiroth relaxes and lets him go, but then his gaze drops downward, and Cloud realizes that his shirt, already loose about the collar, has pulled low sometime during his troubled sleep and consequent freak-out, exposing, he knows, the edges of a smooth white scar directly above his heart. Sephiroth frowns deeply and reaches out to brush a gentle hand against it, and the strange tenderness of the action has Cloud jerking away, something flipping anxiously in the pit of his stomach.

“Cloud,” Sephiroth says, eyes wide as he reaches out again, but Cloud shakes his head and takes a stumbling step back, then another, until he’s backed up against the wall, curling into himself like a cornered animal, and damn it all, why won’t his hands stop _shaking?_ He’s stronger than this—he should be _stronger_ than this—

“Get out,” Cloud says, barely audible even to himself.

“What?” He doesn’t know who says it, but it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t want any of them in here; he doesn’t want any of them to see him like this.

“Get _out,”_ he repeats, just a bit louder, hating himself for the way the words waver. “All of you. Please.”

“Cloud—”

His voice cracks as he chokes out, _“Please.”_

A pause, then quiet footsteps leading out of the room. The last set stops by the door, and Angeal says, soft and low, “Come and eat dinner when you’re feeling better, all right?”

Then the door shuts with a gentle _click._

Slowly, Cloud sinks to the floor, knees weak, and buries his head in his arms. He doesn’t think about his strange dream, fading already with his waking state, the way it’d played out like a broken film reel, patchy and indistinct with half-forgotten memories. He doesn’t think about the way he’d _called_ Tsurugi to him when it’d been safely shut away in Fenrir’s compartments, the same way he knows only one other person can summon his weapon to himself. Most of all, he doesn’t think of the way Sephiroth’s gentle touch had sparked the urge to lean _in,_ to offer himself up and caress in return in a way he’s only ever felt during his blurred dazes spent dancing to Sephiroth’s tune as nothing more than a puppet.

Instead, he sits there, slumped and trembling, and very carefully thinks about nothing.

-

“It’s getting late.” Zack fidgets in his seat as he watches the glowing green numbers on the oven clock change to read _12:27._ It’d taken him a while at first to remember that kitchen appliances don’t follow military time, but he’s been watching the clock for so long, now, that he barely bats an eye. “He didn’t eat lunch, either. He must be starving. Seph, what _happened?”_

“He was having a nightmare when I went to go fetch him,” Sephiroth says. “My… appearance must have startled him badly when he woke. Particularly if… past events were fresh in his mind.”

“Never mind that,” Genesis says, leaning forward. “I know I’m not the only one who saw the scar on his chest. There’s no doubt that it came from Masamune. Sephiroth—you said you ran him through in the _stomach_ in the reactor.”

Sephiroth’s gaze drops to the tabletop. “ … I did. Of that, at least, I am certain.”

“I wasn’t close enough to see,” Angeal says. “Are you really sure it was from—?”

“I can recognize my own work when I see it,” Sephiroth says. “I truly fear thinking… how many times has he been scarred by my blade?”

“Well,” Zack says, joking weakly, “it looks like we have another reason to get him shirtless.”

-

When Cloud finally slips downstairs, the dawn light is barely creeping through the still-drawn curtains. He keeps his footsteps as light as possible so as to not wake anyone else; he’d heard both Zack and Sephiroth enter their bedrooms hours ago, so he assumes Genesis and Angeal are both asleep as well. Honestly, he might have shut himself away for much longer if not for the hunger gnawing at his gut. Usually, the mako in his blood means he can go for quite a while without food, but it’s a double-edged sword; the stress of the past day means that now that his adrenaline rush has passed, he’s ravenous enough to risk grabbing a snack from downstairs. Except—

“So you’ve finally come out,” Genesis says, resting his chin languidly on his hand as he watches Cloud, eyes gleaming like a predatory cat.

Cloud flinches back, torn between the screaming urge to turn back in a strategic retreat and the screaming urge in his very empty stomach.

“You may as well eat. If you’d hadn’t appeared by the time the sun rose, unlike Sephiroth, I’d have had no qualms against breaking your door down and physically dragging you out, as brutish as that method is.”

Cloud frowns, but sets his shoulders and continues his journey down the steps. Eating doesn’t mean he has to _talk_ to Genesis, after all.

“The stew is in the refrigerator,” Genesis says, gesturing with an elegant hand. When Cloud simply pulls it out and begins heating it without a word, though, he says, “Oh, so we’re playing this childish game, now, are we? I’d honestly expected more from you. You’re thirty, aren’t you?”

Cloud doesn’t turn, keeping his gaze fixed on the flames flickering on stove. His fingers tap an anxious rhythm against his leg as he silently urges the stew to heat up faster.

“Very well, then. I am perfectly capable of carrying a conversation on my own.” A creak as Genesis shifts in his chair. “There’s no need to rush. It’s just me; no one else is lying in wait to ambush you or anything of the sort. Zack is truly like a puppy in this respect—once he expends all his energy, he’s out like a light. Angeal is an old man in spirit; without his full eight hours of sleep, I guarantee he won’t be a pretty sight the next morning. And Sephiroth… was deeply troubled by last night’s events. He deserves his rest.

“I won’t push you to speak about it, but we genuinely want to help. Perhaps you feel you can’t trust us. That’s fine. These things take time. But you’ll find that we’re patient, and we’re persistent. Unless you truly don’t want us, we won’t give up on you, little bird.”

Cloud’s shoulders tense at the moniker, and he quickly switches the fire off with shaking hands, uncaring if the stew has heated completely or not. That name, it’s—familiar, yet not, and he feels like he’s somehow heard it before, shaped the same way, with so much affection he doesn’t know how to respond. He turns and meets Genesis’s gaze for the first time, something stirring anxiously in his chest, and his next words drop unbidden from his lips, almost as if someone else is speaking from them.

“Do you—really mean that?” He searches Genesis’s face, desperately waiting for an answer to a question he doesn’t understand why he asked, and somehow he feels like whether or not he leaves the stew sitting on the cooling stove and walks straight out of this villa, Rufus’s orders be damned, hinges on the man’s next words.

Genesis stands and walks slowly up to Cloud, tipping his chin up with a finger. “I do. We all do.”

Cloud bites his lip. Something in him wants to relax against the touch, but another part of him, the part awoken earlier from his strange dream, wants to tear himself away, screaming, _They’ll just hurt you again._

Seeing the doubt reflected in his eyes, Genesis murmurs, “Trust us.”

Then his hand grasps Cloud’s, and together they switch the fire on the stove back on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: wow last chapter was so cute and fun and relaxing to write
> 
> also me: mmm yes more aNGST
> 
> but do i write faster when i write angst? why yes, yes i do ._.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanted to have this up by saturday night but i got sick and… sweats nervously ;;
> 
> but it's up now so everything's good! i promised zack and i have delivered :)

The light filtering into the kitchen is still pale and gray when Zack stumbles blearily down the stairs. Even if Genesis is only doing something as mundane as watching Cloud stare down at his empty bowl, they’re both caught in the still silence that comes with these ethereal, in-between hours, and Zack’s whisper rings loud as it shatters the air.

“Is it safe to come down now?”

Genesis rolls his eyes at the wording. “As ‘safe’ as it can be, pup.” Catching sight of the dark circles under Zack’s eyes, he asks, “Having trouble sleeping?”

Zack laughs nervously, plastering on a bright grin as he rubs the back of his neck. “You could say that, I guess.”

Genesis frowns. “Zack—”

“It’s no big deal!” Zack says. “I guess… it’s kinda weird, yanno? I finally get to lie on a bed after all these years, and I can’t even fall asleep on it… I guess I’m just not used to it, haha!” Even as he laughs again, his smile wavers, and something in Cloud’s heart breaks at seeing Zack so _tired._

He stands, gathering up his empty dishes and setting them in the sink. He’d usually wash them, but something compels him to walk over and grasp Zack’s hand instead. “Zack.”

Zack squeezes back. “Cloudy?”

Cloud bites his lip. He doesn’t know how to comfort people. The only thing he can offer is his presence; he can only hope it is good enough. Gently, he tugs Zack into the living room and sits on the couch, patting the cushion beside him. Zack follows him easily without protest, and when they settle against each other on the couch, legs pressed close, he huffs a laugh. “You always know how to make me feel better.”

Cloud blinks up at him, bemused.

Zack reaches out carefully, giving Cloud ample time to pull away as he loops an arm around his shoulders. When he doesn’t protest, Zack repositions them so Cloud is tucked under his chin, face pressed up close against his chest, and they curl up together on their sides, limbs fitting against each other like puzzle pieces. After a while, he eventually says, “I used to hold you like this all the time, you know. I must have gotten so used to having you always with me that—the bed, it felt empty without you there, and I almost thought that I'd—that you'd…” He shudders and pulls Cloud closer, burying his face in his hair, and he mumbles, “Well, I guess the nightmare bug was biting pretty hard last night for both of us. You’re… it might be kinda cheesy, but you’re my nightlight, Cloudy. I never had any nightmares with you around, even back when we…”

“Zack,” Cloud begins to say, but Zack shakes his head.

“I would have given up a long time ago without you, you know. Maybe the first time I was surrounded by troopers with no way out. Maybe when the Turks started showing up around every corner. Maybe I would never have even gotten the motivation to break out of that Gaiaforsaken lab. There were so many times when it just seemed _impossible,_ and I just wanted to lie down and give up, but I couldn’t have just let you… You kept me going, Cloud. So don’t feel guilty, okay? You’re the only reason I even made it that far. If I’d left you behind, I might have just… I dunno, flopped down in the desert and let myself—”

“Zack!” Cloud grips Zack’s shirt fiercely. “Don’t—don't…"

Zack’s laugh wobbles. “You don’t have to worry about that as long as you’re still around, Cloudy. I’m a right stubborn bastard when it comes to protecting the things I love, you know that."

Cloud blinks. The things he—?

"Cloud, what happened after I—? Were you able to get to Midgar all right? Did you see Aerith?”

Cloud inhales sharply. “I… should have told you a long time ago—Aerith, she…” He trails off, already at a loss for words.

Zack makes a soft wounded noise. “So my dream was real, then.”

“Your—dream?”

“Mm,” Zack says in affirmation. “I think—it was from your point of view? Somehow I know that you were being controlled, and you tried to… but you snapped out of it. And then—Sephiroth, JENOVA, whoever it was, he…” He sighs. “Well. I can see why you freaked out when you saw him last night. And what he said after—”

Cloud feels a bit numb. Of all the things for Zack to dream of—

“JENOVA said some pretty awful things,” Zack says. “Cloud, you’re not—you’re not a—”

“It was a long time ago,” Cloud reassures him. “It took a while, but what they said doesn’t bother me anymore.” Much. 

“I know from the things you’ve said that you don’t blame Seph—this version of him, at least, but do you—you… don’t blame yourself, do you?”

Cloud sighs. He doesn’t think part of him will ever stop thinking of all the what-ifs and if-onlys, but… "Tifa once told me, ‘You’re a self-centered dumbass if you think you’re somehow responsible for every death you couldn’t prevent.’”

Zack laughs, a bit weakly. “Lovely woman, there.”

“Tifa’s great. I don’t know where I’d be without her,” Cloud agrees. “Besides, I… see her. Sometimes.”

“Uh… don’t you live together?”

Cloud smacks his arm lightly. “I mean Aerith.” Zack is silent for a moment, and Cloud says worriedly, “Do you—think I’m crazy?”

“Actually, I—did you ever see me, too? I also kinda saw… flashes? Of stuff. Me and Aerith. From when we were, y’know… dead. I thought it was just random images, but after what you just said… it makes sense, I guess.”

“You—you remember?” Cloud winces. The moments he’d seen Zack had been some of his lowest, when he’d needed Zack to lift him back on his feet. Not that his presence hadn’t been appreciated, but he can only wish that it’d been under better circumstances, especially if now, those moments are what Zack mostly remembers him by.

“Not really. It’s all fuzzy. Sometimes I feel like I was speaking to you. But the first time I actually saw anything, I think you were… fighting someone? And you were havin’ some trouble. I was standing at your back, and I knew that I was dead, had been dead for years, so I couldn’t do much else… but I did my best to get you back on your feet. And after, Aerith and I were talking in the Lifestream, and somehow you were there too. Then I saw you in the church. You were standing in a pool of water, and there were a buncha kids around you… You saw us, right? And then we turned around and left. But I think I was happy for you.”

“I'm sorry. Aerith—I should have said something to you about her earlier. But…” He hadn’t been able to bear the thought of seeing Zack’s face as the realization dawned. “I kept telling myself I’d do it later, and later, and then I just…” 

“Hey, I understand. But at least she’s safe and happy in the Lifestream, now, and she’s always been watching over you, hasn’t she? I get the feeling that she’s real proud of you. I’m glad.” Despite his words, he sniffs wetly. “Look at me, crying like a big baby when I have nothing to be crying about… Pathetic, right?”

Cloud shakes his head. Zack has plenty worth feeling distraught about. “You don’t have to act cheerful all the time.”

“Sometimes… sometimes I feel like I do, though. The others—they don’t usually argue so easily like that. They’re really shaken, you know, by everything that’s happened while we’ve been gone. The least I can do is keep smiling for them.”

Cloud shakes his head again. “They can tell when it’s fake. And if it hurts you to put on an act, I don’t think they want that. They just haven’t said anything because they know it’s how you cope.”

Zack is silent for a moment. Then he says, a bit wonderingly, “Even now, you still…” He trails off.

“Zack?”

Cloud can feel Zack’s mouth quirk up against his hair. “You seem pretty different, but you really haven’t changed as much as I’d thought. That’s a bit comforting, I guess.”

“Oh,” Cloud says, confused, but he sets it aside for later. Right now, he needs to say— “Sorry.”

“ … For what?”

“That argument… was about me, wasn’t it? And then what happened after…” He grimaces. He hasn’t had an attack that bad in years, so he hadn’t said anything to them about his nightmares. But last night’s circumstances had been… unusual. “I’m sorry. I should have warned you.”

Zack’s heavy sigh blows several strands of Cloud’s hair out of place. “It’s not your fault, Cloud. It never was.”

“Um, okay,” Cloud says. “I just wanted to say—if you guys are uncomfortable with doing your whole four-way relationship thing in front of me, then that’s, uh, up to you. But if you’re—well, I don’t have anything against it, okay? Just don’t, like, have sex on the furniture or anything.”

Zack doesn’t say anything for a long while, and Cloud squirms uncomfortably in his grasp. “Zack?”

Then he bursts out laughing and drops Cloud straight off the couch.

Cloud yelps, more surprised than hurt.

Genesis emerges from the kitchen, looking concerned, then shakes his head as he watches Cloud groan on the floor while Zack rolls about on the couch, still laughing. “Honestly. Are you still sixteen, puppy?”

“Gen!” Zack says. “I learned what irony means, are you proud of me?”

“Yes, good job, pup, do you want a treat, too?” Genesis says sarcastically.

“Hm, actually, that’d be _real_ nice, yeah,” Zack says with a sly grin, and _wow_ Cloud should not be here for this. Before he can scramble to his feet and hightail it out of the room, though, Zack loops his arms around his waist and pulls him back on top of his chest, settling comfortably back onto the couch. “Hey now, don’t run. I’m sorry for dropping you, Cloudy.”

“I do _not_ want to be here while you flirt with your boyfriend, Zack,” Cloud says.

“So you’re aware, then?” Genesis smirks, then strides forward. “I don’t think any of us would mind you being here. Or even joining in on some _other_ activities.”

Cloud rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure,” he says sarcastically. “But I have a few important calls to make…" He trails off as he yawns widely, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.

“Aww,” Zack coos in a way one might speak to a particularly small or fluffy pet. “You’re tired, aren’t you?”

Cloud glares through the tears. “What’s with that tone?”

“Nothin’!” he chirps. “Why don’t we take a nap together, Cloudy? I’m pretty beat, too!”

“But—I really need to call…” Cloud yawns again. His shoulders slump. “ … Fine.”

Something like fondness lingers on the edges of Genesis’s lips as he smiles at them. “I’m glad to see you feeling better, little bird. I’ll bring a blanket for the two of you.”

-

“—same as always. It’s almost like a scene from the past.”

A low chuckle. “Isn’t it?”

Gentle fingers run soothingly through Cloud’s hair, and he stirs sleepily. They pause. “Cloud?” a third voice says lowly.

But Cloud simply curls in deeper against the warmth beside him, pleased when the hand in his hair soon resumes its rhythm. Despite the way a crick is developing in his back from his awkward sprawl, he’s more comfortable and at peace than he can ever remember being.

“We should wake them soon, though. I don’t want to have to deal with a hyperactive puppy when he won’t be able to fall asleep later tonight.”

The warm presence rumbles with a yawn. “I’m up, I’m up.” A different set of hands—one on his back, the other on his ass—shift somewhere else, leaving the areas cold, and Cloud makes a sleepy noise of complaint. A chuckle. “Do we really gotta wake him up, though? He’s cute like this.”

That statement prompts Cloud to mutter, “M’not cute.”

“Oh, he lives,” says—Genesis? He sounds very amused.

Cloud groans and buries his face into Zack’s chest—

Zack’s chest?

Cloud’s eyes snap open, only to be greeted by a soft cotton barrier between his face and a set of very firm pecs, and he yelps and pushes himself away.

“Whoa, Cloudy—”

“Oof—!” Cloud finds himself staring up at the ceiling after falling off the couch for the second time that day, limbs tangled up in a thin blanket, and he groans again, throwing an arm over his eyes. “Dammit.”

Genesis’s face hovers above him, still smirking in amusement. “Are all your wake-ups quite so… eventful?”

Cloud shifts his arm slightly to glower up at him. “I can and will stop talking to you again.”

Angeal and Sephiroth’s faces join Genesis’s, Sephiroth’s looking significantly more hesitant. “Are you… all right?” the silver-haired man asks.

Cloud waves a hand dismissively as he sits up. “I’m fine. … Sorry about last night. Is… your throat okay?”

Sephiroth nods. “The wound was inconsequential. I heal quickly.”

Cloud grimaces. “Sorry,” he says again.

“No, it was a failed judgment on my part,” Sephiroth says. “I should have known that you would not react well to my sudden appearance in the dark, particularly if you were having a nightmare.”

Cloud sighs. “No, I—I should have warned you. It hasn’t happened in a while, and I don’t like bringing it up, so I thought I might be able to get away with not saying anything, but…" In retrospect, it'd been a rather foolish decision. It'd been bound to happen eventually, what with living in the same house with Sephiroth and everything…

Although he honestly hadn't expected to ever wake up to Sephiroth in his actual _room._

Angeal frowns. “So it’s happened before? Frequently?”

“A lot of us in AVALANCHE, after things calmed down…” Cloud trails off, then shrugs. “Well. We all get nightmares pretty regularly. It kinda comes with the territory. I guess last night’s combined with—seeing Sephiroth…” Unconsciously, his hand falls to rest directly below his ribcage, where he’d been impaled in his dream, and where he knows lies another smooth, white scar, a direct mirror to the one they’d seen on his chest last night. He shakes his head. “If I get another nightmare like that, just—let me wake up on my own, okay? Touch isn’t… a good idea.”

Zack frowns. “I don’t like the idea of just letting you keep sleeping through something as terrible as that, though.”

Cloud shrugs again.

“Cloud,” Sephiroth says suddenly, “I apologize if this is too invasive. I know it must bring up bad memories. But I _need_ to know—where else has my blade marked you?”

Both Genesis and Angeal frown disapprovingly. “Seph,” Angeal says. “Isn’t that a little—”

Sephiroth shakes his head. “I need to know,” he repeats.

“You needn’t say anything if you don’t wish to, little bird,” Genesis says. “Especially after what happened last night. Sephiroth is—”

“Cloud,” Sephiroth says, something like pleading in his eyes. “If you really do not want to, then I cannot force you. But… after last night, I—” He clenches his hands into fists, and Cloud suddenly realizes they are trembling. “Please.”

Cloud can literally _feel_ the guilt and self-loathing coming off the man in waves. He sighs, then stands. “I understand. It’s easier to just show you, then.”

After all, it’s not like that dream had been about his _scars,_ after all. No, it'd been something more abstract, just beyond his grasp, something hovering right on the tip of his tongue that had tasted inexplicably of hurt betrayal and bone-deep loss and shattered hopes. Nothing as tangible as his scars, which no longer bother him like they used to.

His mother had once told him that long ago, before the ShinRa men came with their reactor and strange ways of life, the only people in Nibelheim who hadn’t borne scars from battling the harsh wilderness were the children, young and untested. Having scars was a sign of _pride,_ of _honor,_ that one had been able to do their part contributing to their village. _Skin-stories,_ she’d called them in the language of the mountains. _Respect the tales engraved on people’s bodies, Cloud._

Each mark on his skin tells a tale of things he’d survived, things that had tried their damn hardest to kill him, and there’s something of—not quite pride, but at least a quiet satisfaction that despite all those things and their not inconsiderable efforts, he’s still alive and kicking and _unbroken,_ having picked up his shattered self and pieced it back together enough to spit in their proverbial faces. But those tales are his and his alone, and sharing something so private, so intimate, baring his very soul before other people—well.

But these four men are powerful fighters in their own right, each having fought and lost just as Cloud has. They should understand that there is no shame in the sustaining the signs of his struggle, of his survival. Besides, he supposes Sephiroth has more right to know than anyone else. He may not be ready to speak of them in detail, particularly not of the ones not so easily seen, nor does he think Sephiroth is quite ready to hear it, but this—this, he can do.

So Cloud reaches for the hem of his shirt, the corner of his mouth quirking up wryly. “Just a warning. They’re… not very pretty.” That said, he pulls his shirt off in one swift motion. Better to get it done as quickly as possible.

There’s a long silence as the others take in the mess of scars on his torso, and Cloud holds his head high, determinedly meeting their gazes. He’s long since memorized each curve and line marking his body after many nights spent counting them one by one, long nights where it’d felt like the web of scars, their solid tangibility, had been the only thing keeping him from falling apart at the seams.

The marks Hojo left are thin and faded, only visible when the light hits them just right and nearly imperceptible to the touch. They’re straight and neat as they mark his body like an animal for slaughter. Cloud doesn’t scar nearly as easily anymore, not after the experiments, but there’s still a puckered, star-shaped scar to the right of his heart, small but deep, where Loz and Yazoo had shot clean through his chest. On his left side is a large bite mark, each fang distinct, from where a dragon had gotten a lucky shot in a few years ago, the closest Cloud had been to death since Sephiroth. And the scars from Masamune—these are the most plentiful, never fading regardless of their severity or lack thereof, as if Hojo had intentionally made it so that Sephiroth would leave as much of his mark on his puppet’s body as possible. And oh, had Sephiroth revelled in it—

Many thin, shallow cuts are scattered across his arms and legs and chest, from where Sephiroth could have killed him but had decided to toy with him instead. As for the deeper ones—

One directly above his hipbone, slicing clean through his side. One through his right shoulder, where Sephiroth had pinned him to a building like a butterfly to corkboard. One through his chest above his heart, once Sephiroth had grown tired of that game. And one, the earliest and most painful, directly below his ribcage, where Sephiroth had run him through and he’d bled out on the floor of the reactor, blissfully unaware of the green-washed hell that was to follow.

There’s a sharp intake of breath as Angeal steps around him to inspect his back. "These all—go straight through," he says. "Cloud—Cloud, _how—"_

His shock and horror is visible in his voice, and Cloud shifts uncomfortably. He'd hoped that somehow, they wouldn't make a big deal out of it, that they'd treat him as an equal, but—

But at least there's no pity. He doesn't think he'd have been able to take any of that.

He pulls his shirt back on. "That's the end of the show," he says dryly. "Sorry, we're not taking any questions at the moment."

Sephiroth is the only one who remains impassive, but the indecipherable turmoil beating at Cloud's mental barriers betrays his expression. He nods stiffly. " … Thank you."

Cloud tilts his head. “Did it help?”

“In… certain ways, I suppose.”

“That’s good then,” Cloud says. “So… is there breakfast?” When no one responds, he sighs. “It’s not like these weren't there yesterday. There’s no need to treat me differently. Honestly, I’d rather you not.”

Zack’s bottom lip trembles. “Cloud—”

Cloud frowns. “Does it really bother you that much?”

“Yes!” bursts from Zack’s mouth. “I should have—I should have been there, to protect you—”

Cloud shakes his head. “It’s not like I don’t wish you’d been there to fight with us either, but I don’t need to be protected. Not like that.” _Not again,_ something in him says. _Never again._

“Do you not want to be protected, Cloud?” Genesis asks softly. “Do you not feel like you deserve the love, the care, the knowledge that someone cherishes you enough to try?”

Cloud chews his lip thoughtfully. “Mutual protection is fine,” he says slowly. “The ability to support each other is important. _Trust_ is important. If your friends or your romantic partners or your allies in battle don’t trust you to take care of yourself, to be able to take care of them just as they take care of you, then aren’t you just a useless burden? Watching others take everything on themselves because of you, because they don’t trust you to be able to help—I think I’d hate feeling that way above all.” On its own, his hand rises to rest over his heart, where the scar they’d seen first lies. “Don’t feel bad about my scars. They say that I took the chance to protect the people I love. Maybe I didn’t always succeed, but at least I tried.”

Angeal looks surprised. “You never… That’s an interesting mindset, Cloud.”

Cloud shrugs. He knows very well how it feels to be small and helpless, and sometimes he still feels that way. But Tifa’d taught him that half the battle is to simply _try,_ and that choice, at least, is something no one can take from him.

“I’m sorry, Cloudy,” Zack says. “I didn’t mean to demean or belittle anything you went through, I just—felt really bad that I wasn’t there to help you through it. Like you said—mutual support, right?”

Cloud gives him a small smile. “I know you didn’t. I just…” He’d just felt really worried, all of a sudden, that they’d settle back into old habits of—of…

_Of what?_

Cloud shakes himself slightly. “Just—it’s okay, Zack.”

Angeal nods solemnly. “I think we all understand better, even if just a bit. Thank you for sharing with us, Cloud.”

Cloud wrinkles his nose at the phrase. “What is this, small group therapy? I’ve got enough of that to last me a lifetime.”

Angeal looks a bit surprised, but Zack laughs and tosses an arm over Cloud’s shoulder. “Yeah! No need to be so stiff and formal, ‘Geal! By the way, Spike, you gotta tell me about that awesome sword of yours! I totally didn’t see you bring it up to your room yesterday—did you style it after the Buster Sword just for me? Also, you asked about breakfast, right? Let’s go eat, Angeal made pancakes!”

“Oh,” Cloud says, startled by the rapid-fire topic changes, but he lets Zack steer him into the kitchen, leaving the other Firsts behind in the living room. “Well… yes? Tsurugi’s a bit thinner and lighter, though. Different metal.” And _very_ different design, but… that’s a long explanation for later.

“Makes sense, makes sense,” Zack says. “You’re pretty tiny, after all.” Smoothly ignoring Cloud’s indignant “hey!”, he says, “Then what’d you do with the ol’ Buster, eh? I know you wouldn’t just dump it by the wayside or anything, but is it at home? On display in a museum? In a shrine? C’mon, you gotta tell me!”

“It’s… kind of in a shrine, I guess.”

“No way! I guessed it right?”

“I left it in Aerith’s church.” Cloud adds hastily, “I polish it every once in a while.”

"Hm," Zack says thoughtfully. "We should go visit someday. The Buster Sword used to be Angeal's, you know. Hey, how soon can we leave this place?"

"Technically, you guys can go wherever as long as you're with me," Cloud says. "But… I think Cid would actually strangle me if I made him ferry us back to Edge in less than a full day. Not to mention there's nowhere for all of us to stay there. And… I kind of still have to break the news to my friends that…"

"That Seph's alive," Zack finishes. "Don't worry, I get it. No rush, yeah?"

"I'll definitely arrange a way for us to go there sometime soon," Cloud promises. "You deserve to see."

-

Cloud doesn't see much of the three oldest Firsts for the rest of the day, and when he does, they're whispering fervently among themselves, so he assumes they're still hashing out whatever it is they were arguing about yesterday. Even Zack begins making himself scarce after a while, so Cloud relegates himself to reinstalling the boiler, and when still no one appears, all the lightbulbs not in the others' bedrooms, both downstairs and upstairs. After that, he throws all the dirty clothes in the wash, then does the dishes, then realizes he's beginning to feel like a neglected housewife and huffily resigns himself to laying flat on his bed, staring up at the ceiling of his room. He adamantly ignores the distant _beep_ from the basement as the washing machine declares its cycle done; the Firsts can very well hang their own damn clothes out to dry.

… But if no one goes down to get them within the next few hours, he will, otherwise they'll start to smell musty, and—

Cloud groans and rolls over, burying his head in his pillow. He needs to find something more productive to do, otherwise he's going to go _mad._

(Maybe he already has.)

Tsurugi glints in the corner of his eye as he rolls over again, and he sits up abruptly. In the chaotic mess of everything that had happened, he'd almost forgotten about how he'd—he'd—

He almost shies away from thinking of it, but he forces himself to stare daggers at his sword, silently willing it to come to him. If he's going to start developing creepy Sephiroth abilities he'd better learn how to control them before something seriously wack manifests, like tentacles or another eyeball or some shit.

After a few minutes, though, nothing has happened, and Cloud is beginning to feel a bit foolish, holding a staring contest with his sword as he is. Maybe… he needs to be in a different room? It wouldn't make sense to try to muster the mental focus to summon his sword to him when he could easily cross the room and grab it in the same amount of time, maybe even less.

Casting Tsurugi one last sharp glance, he leaves his room and enters the bathroom instead, plopping himself down on the floor. He doesn’t quite know how to start, so he shuts his eyes and tries to imagine Tsurugi, its familiar weight in his hands, each of its individual parts, the way he’d poured his heart and soul into making a weapon that is purely _his,_ not a copy of Zack’s or Sephiroth’s, but something that somehow represents _Cloud._

He’s rather disappointed when, anticlimactically, nothing happens. Then he begins to hope that maybe he’s lucky enough that it’d just been a one-off, a weird reaction caused by, he doesn’t know, J-cells interacting or some scientific bullshit—

The door suddenly opens, and Cloud nearly jumps out of his skin, stumbling to his feet and—

“Holy crap, Cloud!” Zack backs up several feet, waving his hands as if it would do anything to ward off the several feet of sharp metal wielded by a hair-trigger blond. “Uh… what are you doing with your sword in the bathroom?”

Cloud opens his mouth, then shuts it. That sounds… vaguely dirty.

Zack seems to realize it, too, and stutters a bit. “I mean—! Uh!”

“I’ll just, uh, let you—do your thing, yeah, bye,” Cloud mumbles, and quickly pushes out of the bathroom, Tsurugi in hand.

When he reaches the safety of his bedroom, he leans against the wall, slowly sliding down until he sits with his forehead pressed against the flat of his blade. His blade that he can now summon at will. Or at least at panic.

Well, shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> agszc!cloud most definitely has a complex about equal footing in relationships, fight me
> 
> in other news, i have a [tumblr](https://skadren.tumblr.com/) now!! there’s not much on it yet bc i’m still trying to figure out how to actually tumblr™, but i’d love to chat with any of y’all, whether it be screaming about ffvii or how your day has been or how terrible my fic is <3


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao i feel like half the comments you guys leave are just “poor cloud” … and the other half are just about how he’s clueless or an utter dumbass or both. idk what it says about this fic but it’s pretty damn hilarious regardless so
> 
> just a warning, cloud has some slightly unhealthy eating habits, not because of self-image or anything, but. y’know. it’s there (no matter how much cloud may say it isn’t)

_"Calling me in just barely over a day? I’m touched. I didn’t know you’d miss me so much.”_

Cloud rolls his eyes at Rufus’s melodrama. “When are you sending a Turk over?”

_“A Turk?”_

“Don’t pretend like you weren’t going to.”

_“A Turk…"_ Rufus repeats. _“I was going to send Reno at the end of next week. I haven’t heard of any explosions or mass homicides or anything of the sort in Costa del Sol yet. Should I be concerned?”_

“What? No,” Cloud says. “I just need some stuff from home, so I was wondering if he could stop by at Seventh Heaven and grab it from Tifa before coming here. Also…”

_“Also?”_

“Is it possible to arrange for a day trip or something to Edge for the five of us?”

_“Why, Cloud, are you getting soft on your new companions?”_

“I just want to show them the church,” Cloud says. “And also, um, break the news to Tifa in person.”

_“ … I don’t envy you that position. I suppose I’m obligated to tell you that this information is classified by the WRO, and that you are not to tell anyone without the proper clearance—”_

“I heard the whole spiel yesterday,” Cloud says. “Why don’t _you_ tell her, then? It’s your fault I’m here anyways.”

_“You know as well as I do that my participation will not in any way let you off the hook. In fact, it might make your situation worse if she finds out from anyone other than you.”_

Cloud pauses. “Wait, shit, Cid—”

_“Is currently in Rocket Town, and will be for the next few days,”_ Rufus answers smoothly. _“I’ll ask Reno to pick you up in three days, and make arrangements for you all to stay at the WRO for as long as your companions are amenable. You may as well wait to get your things from Seventh Heaven until afterwards.”_

" … Thanks," Cloud says, still not quite used to Rufus being so cooperative. He must really, really want to gain the Firsts' good favor. Not that Cloud doesn't understand, given how shorthanded the WRO is on manpower—even with Cloud on reserve for _emergencies only, Rufus,_ he can’t be everywhere at once—but the courteous treatment just reeks of manipulation. It makes Cloud wary; nothing good ever comes so easily.

_"Since you've actually taken the initiative to call me, I may as well ask—is everything going well? No strange, possibly JENOVA-related incidents?"_

" … They’re fine." The only strange incidents that have occurred have happened to Cloud, and those very decidedly go under the category of _none of Rufus's fucking business._

_"Excellent. Now, not that speaking to you isn't an utter joy,"_ Rufus says, _"but if that's all, I have some urgent business to attend to. Although—you wouldn't happen to have any, ah, convenient information on the recent spike in monster presence, would you?"_

A frown creases Cloud's brow. That is actually… very concerning, particularly considering recent events. "No," he says. "I didn't even know about it until now."

_"How unfortunate,"_ Rufus says. _"Well, it's left us all quite busy here, so do forgive my abruptness. I'll be seeing you in several days, then."_

After saying his goodbyes to Rufus, Cloud grimaces down at his PHS, bracing himself for the next call. He dials.

Tifa picks up in less than three rings. _“Cloud! I wasn’t expecting a call so soon. Is everything all right?”_

Cloud sighs. What is it with everyone assuming something is wrong when he calls? “Hey Tifa. Is it okay if I swing by in about four days or so to pick up some stuff?”

_“Of course you can. It’s your home, remember? You’re allowed to do these things without asking for permission. Are you really doing okay, Cloud?”_ Tifa says, starting to sound a bit worried.

“I didn't forget,” Cloud reassures her. They’d spent a while going over that, drumming into Cloud’s mind that he’s allowed to have these things now. “It’s just—I’ll be… bringing some people with me.”

_“Oh,”_ Tifa says, sounding surprised but pleased. _“Some friends of yours? Do you want me to prepare extra food for them? Just let me know when you’re more sure about the time, and I’ll—”_

“No!” Cloud says quickly. “We’ll just… be in and out. I really don’t think you’ll want us to stick around.”

_“What do you mean? And just what do you need to do so badly that you went through the trouble of bullying Rufus into letting you come back here? You said you’d be gone for at least a few weeks—you meant that you’d be with these people, right?”_

“Uh,” Cloud says. “Actually. I’d rather tell you everything in person.”

_“ … It’s that bad?”_

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

_“If you’re delaying like this…”_

Cloud protests, “I’m not delaying, I really do think you should hear this in person—”

_“I believe you,”_ Tifa says. _“But it also provides a convenient excuse for you to put off telling me until later, doesn’t it?”_

“Tifa…”

_“I’m just teasing. Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad, right? Rufus may be morally ambiguous, but I know you wouldn’t do anything truly harmful.”_

“Um… could you maybe pack my stuff in advance? So when you kick my ass out I can take it with me.”

_“Cloud!”_ Tifa sounds like she’s suppressing laughter, but Cloud is most definitely not joking. _“Fine, then, what do you need?”_

“Clothes for hot weather,” Cloud answers promptly. “The beach.”

_“I don’t think you have anything like that,”_ Tifa says. _“Are you sure you don’t want to pack for yourself?”_

“Just pack whatever, you know I’m not picky,” Cloud says. “I trust your judgment.”

_“All right then. Anything else?”_

“ … Shampoo.”

A pause. _“Cloud, what in the world is Rufus Shinra making you do? If you were—I don’t know, investigating the Northern Crater or something, then I might understand, but you’re at the_ beach? _And he hasn’t given you shampoo? Do you have soap? Food? Water?"_

“No, we have shampoo, I just—” Cloud cuts himself off. What is he even supposed to say? _I just feel uncomfortable using the kind he gave us?_ That… would spur quite a few awkward questions he really doesn’t want to think about answering right now. “Tifa…”

Easily recognizing Cloud’s signal for _I really don’t know what the fuck to say right now,_ Tifa moves on quickly, but her tone implies that they will definitely be addressing it later once Cloud has some time to get his head on straight. After they finish speaking, Cloud dials a number for one last call; this one takes significantly longer for the other end to pick up.

_“Cloud.”_

“Vincent. I need your help.”

-

“Sephiroth—”

“For the last time, I said no more,” Sephiroth says. “I will not be taking part of this anymore.”

“Seph,” Angeal says patiently, “we understand how you feel, but—”

Sephiroth’s lip curls into a self-loathing snarl. “You do not. Each of us may have broken his heart, yes. But none of you have—have—”

“What happened between you two was under extenuating circumstances,” Genesis says. “You said Cloud said it himself—you were not immune to the mental effects of degradation; in fact, you were even more vulnerable. The things you did were not of your own will.”

Sephiroth shakes his head. “I will not be swayed. I will no longer participate in our plans, nor will I attempt to pursue him any further; it would be better for Cloud to never remember our previous relationship. Now that I have seen what I have done…”

“Shouldn’t it be up to Cloud?” Zack says. “If he doesn’t want anything to do with us once he remembers, then that’s that. But you can’t just decide _for_ him. He’d hate that.”

“I don’t trust Cloud to do what’s best for himself. He disregards his own wellbeing too easily.”

Zack gapes. “How can you say that after what he said earlier! You heard it with your own ears. He was hurt so bad by us all those years ago because he thought we didn’t trust him! That we didn’t think he was good enough to help us! And here you are saying—saying—”

“This is a different kind of trust, Zack. I trust Cloud with many things, including my life. Just not with his own.”

“What the hell kind of distinction is that?!”

“It is late,” Sephiroth says. “I am tired. I will be retiring.”

The door to the master bedroom shuts loudly, followed by a sharp click as the lock turns. Genesis gapes incredulously. “Did he just—lock us out of our own bedroom, Angeal?”

“Seph!” Zack pounds on the door. “This is just going to hurt Cloud more in the long run! Seph! Open up!”

“Zack.” Angeal puts a hand on his shoulder, stilling his movements. “Let’s just… give him some time to himself, all right?”

“Angeal!” Zack looks at him incredulously. “You just want to leave him like this? The last time something like this happened, he—”

“He used to do this quite a bit,” Angeal says. “You never saw it as bad as this because you joined us later, but back when Gen and I were trying to get to know him better, he’d shut us out constantly. Forcing our way in only made him withdraw further.”

Zack slumps. “Having to leave Cloud all alone like that last night was bad enough. Now we have to do it to Seph, too?”

“Speaking of which,” Genesis says suddenly. “Sephiroth was right in one respect—it’s rather late. Long past dinnertime. We haven’t exactly been… discreet, either. Have either of you seen Cloud at all?”

“I—no,” Zack says, brow furrowing. “Not since I, uh, went to the bathroom…”

“I caught a glimpse of him hanging laundry outside a few hours ago, right before it got too dark,” Angeal offers. “He seemed fine, and I was a bit more worried about Seph at the time…”

“We should go check on him,” Zack says. “He’s probably giving us space because he thinks we don’t want him around or something terrible like that.”

“That assumption is technically not incorrect,” Genesis points out. “Having him around for this argument would be rather disastrous—”

A shuffling noise. “Are you guys… arguing again?”

Zack turns, and his breath catches in his throat.

Standing at the end of the hall and rubbing his eyes sleepily is _Cloud—_ not the thirty-year-old Cloud who radiates quiet confidence and understated strength, but their sixteen-year-old Cloud, sweet and fierce and slightly fumbling all at once. It’s evident in everything from the rounded shape of his face to the open look in his eyes to the way his clothes, the same as what thirty-year-old Cloud had been wearing, hang even looser on his slight frame. Even the way he moves as he walks up to them—eager but slightly clumsily, a teen stumbling on awkward limbs, rather than the silent grace they’ve all grown used to over the past day, belies his identity.

_“Cloud?”_ Zack is utterly stunned. “What—?”

“Zack,” Cloud says, smiling as he stands on his toes to give him a quick peck on the cheek. “I woke up alone, so I was wondering where you all went.”

“Cloud,” Genesis says, brows knitting in confusion. “How—how is this…”

Cloud’s smile slowly slides off his face. “What’s wrong?”

Zack quickly plasters on a bright, reassuring grin. “Nothing, Cloudy!” He scoops up the small teen easily into a hug, discreetly slipping a hand under his shirt to feel for the long scar they’d seen above his hip earlier that day, then huffs a disbelieving laugh. _Nothing,_ he mouths at Angeal and Genesis over Cloud’s shoulder.

Cloud frowns. “You’re lying again.” Then he tilts his head, as if listening to something. “Seph—isn’t doing too good, is he.”

Angeal takes a steadying breath. “Cloud, I don’t think—”

“Put me down,” Cloud says, wriggling in Zack’s grasp, and Zack quickly sets him back onto the ground. 

When he walks up to the door and reaches for the handle, though, Genesis quickly says, “The door is locked. Sephiroth does not wish to be disturbed.”

Cloud gives them all a very flat look, then knocks. “Seph?”

There’s a long silence, then with another click, the door swings open ever so slightly.

“I’m coming in,” Cloud says, and does just that. The door shuts gently behind him.

For a moment, they all stare at each other, then Zack groans, shaking his head. “What is going on right now? I’m so confused!”

“I… truly have no idea,” Genesis says, looking just as confused. “Angeal, he’s wearing the same clothing as Cloud was earlier, right? So it really was Cloud and not—a ghost or anything of that sort, correct?”

“I would never forget those boxer shorts,” Angeal says, looking briefly aggrieved, and Zack mutters _oh yeah those shorts._ “But we can go check his bedroom. He said he ‘woke up alone’, didn’t he?”

Genesis nods. “Very well. You go check; Zack and I will stay here and listen for any noises of distress.”

-

The room is dark when Cloud steps in, but his eyes adjust quickly. He catches sight of a dark bundle huddled in the corner. Sephiroth.

“Seph?” he says softly, stepping closer.

Glowing green eyes flicker open. “ … Cloud,” Sephiroth murmurs. “Is this… a dream? Some sick concoction of my mind to torture me?”

“I’m not a dream. See?” Cloud crouches in front of him and holds out a hand for him to grasp, but Sephiroth quickly flinches back, scooting several feet away, and Cloud frowns.

Sephiroth gets like this sometimes, when a mission goes awry and he loses too many men, when ShinRa treats him like the living weapon he thinks he is, when he is reminded too harshly of the strange mixture of reverence and fear everyone treats him with. Usually Cloud or Angeal are the best when it comes to helping Sephiroth through these moods, as Genesis is too easily frustrated and Zack can’t sit still long enough, but he’s never shied away from Cloud’s touch before. But Cloud presses his lips into a firm line and soldiers on determinedly. If he can’t even do this for one of his lovers, then what is he good for?

So he settles down against the wall and, a bit haltingly, begins telling one of his Ma's stories. He does his best to recreate the ebb and flow of its rhythm, the musicality of its words, but some things don't translate properly from their language, and he's already a poor storyteller as it is. He fumbles and even skips over some parts, resulting in a rather incoherent rendition, but the way Sephiroth's gaze is avidly fixed on him urges him on, and when he finishes the first tale, he tells another, then another. He speaks and speaks until his voice is hoarse, not accustomed to using it for such an extended period of time, and finally, when his description of the way the little Gerda's tears melted the shards of the ice mirror embedded in Kai's heart is interrupted halfway by a fit of coughing, Sephiroth says, "Cloud."

Cloud blinks up at him. "Hm?"

"You should leave."

"Why?" Cloud asks patiently.

" … I do not want you to be here," Sephiroth says, despite how his gaze is still fixed on him.

"Then why did you open the door?"

"I thought you were… someone else. I was mistaken."

"With your hearing?" Cloud raises a brow.

Sephuroth growls. "Cloud. I will hurt you."

And maybe it's intended as a threat, but all Cloud hears is something akin to a desperate fear. "Seph," he says, reaching out a hand again. "I love you. I'm not going to leave when you clearly don't want me to, especially when you're hurting like this."

The glow of Sephiroth's eyes dims as his eyelids lower. "You should."

"You're more important than that," Cloud insists. "I _love_ you, Seph."

"You would not be saying that if you knew what I—"

_"Sephiroth,"_ Cloud says, beginning to feel a bit frustrated, and he grabs Sephiroth's hand. The man's eyes widen, but Cloud is pleased when he doesn't pull away. Sephiroth often indulges in Cloud and allows him to take the lead, but the moment he has any objections, Cloud may as well be speaking to a brick wall for all his efforts change anything. But now, even though it looks like Sephiroth has quite a few objections, their hands remain linked, and it only fuels Cloud’s belief that Sephiroth doesn’t want what he’s saying, not truly. “No matter what you’ve done, how can you make up for it if you don’t even try?”

" … Your eyes," Sephiroth murmurs, non sequitur. "They still glow. I see…” Sephiroth brushes his free hand gently over Cloud’s cheek and says, “I love you too, Cloud. If I could, I… Are you really giving me this second chance?”

Cloud smiles, relieved, and clutches Sephiroth’s hand tighter. “Of course.”

-

“He really isn’t there,” Angeal says as he comes back downstairs, looking stunned. “I checked all the other rooms, too, just in case. Unless he left completely, but then we would have heard him. I…” He shakes his head, at a loss for words. “Is everything all right on this end?”

Zack shrugs. “They’ve been talking, but we can’t pick out what they’ve been saying.”

“Who knows,” Genesis says. “This may be just what Sephiroth needs. We may have no idea as to how this even happened… but perhaps some part of Cloud felt this and responded accordingly.”

“Is that even possible?” Zack says, brow wrinkling.

“I haven’t had the chance to tell you about what happened during our discussion about materia yet, have I?” Genesis says. “It doesn’t explain his… change in appearance, but Cloud seems to be able to hear things many of us can’t. I don’t know if this is ability is newly acquired or it was something he’s always been able to do, but… he shared it with me, if only briefly.”

When Genesis explains what Cloud taught him yesterday, Angeal looks thoughtful. “He never mentioned anything like this before, so I want to say it’s new, but the way he spoke of it makes it seem like something from his childhood.”

“Troopers never got to handle materia,” Zack reminds them. “Maybe he never felt like he had to bring it up?”

“Maybe. But what interests me most is that he said that he’d forgotten,” Angeal says, and Genesis nods.

“‘When I finally remembered’ are his exact words, I believe.”

“So we know that we aren’t the only things he’s forgotten,” Angeal concludes. “And he’s managed to recover a substantial amount on his own. Which makes sense—he’s got his childhood friend, Tifa, right? Her presence must have helped him recover his memories, but not the ones about us. She was never around during his time in ShinRa, after all.”

“Then from the way things’re looking right now,” Zack says, glancing at the closed door, “Cloud might even remember whether we help him or not. I don’t think Seph will like that…”

For a while, they simply stand there, listening to the quiet murmuring on the other side of the door. After what seems like an eternity and a half, it dies down, and everything is silent.

Angeal gestures towards the door. _Let’s check,_ he mouths.

When they ease it open, they’re greeted by the sight of Cloud sitting against the wall, Sephiroth’s head cradled in his lap. He pauses in carding his fingers through Sephiroth’s hair to raise a finger to his lips. “He’s sleeping,” he whispers.

It’s a testament to Sephiroth’s exhaustion—and perhaps trust—that he doesn’t even stir, despite how he should have easily detected their footsteps as they gather around.

There’s something new to Cloud’s eyes as he looks up at them, something _older,_ weary and knowing and sad, and suddenly, they all know that he _knows_ what they’ve done—

“Cloud,” Angeal says, but Cloud shakes his head and shushes him again.

He rises to his feet, still carefully cradling Sephiroth’s head, and says, “Help me lay him on the bed?”

As they ease Sephiroth into a comfortable position on the king-sized bed, carefully arranging his limbs and hair, Cloud says suddenly, “I forgive you.” Genesis opens his mouth, but Cloud continues, staring down at his hands as he carefully smooths out the wrinkles in the sheets, “It still hurts. A lot. And I won’t say it’s okay. It’s going to take a long time to get better. But I understand a bit more, now, and… I forgive you.” He straightens and gestures at himself. “This version of me… is just a memory. It may have been needed tonight, but I’m not meant to be like… _this._ So when I wake up… be patient, okay? Just as there’s a lot I don’t consciously remember, there’s a lot you all don’t know.”

“Cloud,” Genesis says, desperately, “does that mean we will never see you again?”

Cloud shakes his head. “I’ll be here. I’ve been here all along.”

And he shuts his eyes, image wavering like a heat-fueled mirage, then thirty-year-old Cloud stands in his place, unconscious. Zack catches him quickly before he can fall over, and stares down at his sleeping face, peaceful and open and inexplicably young in a way they've never seen him when awake.

“He’s right, you know, Gen,” Zack says. “Just look at him. Cloud is Cloud. No matter what.”

-

When Cloud wakes up the next morning, he’s surprised to find his blanket lying over his body when he’d fallen asleep on top of it. Tsurugi sits undisturbed in its corner; his PHS is where he left it on the bedside table. His room is empty otherwise. Why would one of the others sneak into his room to just rearrange his blankets?

More importantly, why hadn’t he woken up? As light of a sleeper as he is, a foreign presence in his room should have been more than enough to rouse him, much less physically picking him up and moving him around.

Then he rolls over to check the time on his PHS, and nearly falls off the bed when he sees it. A straight twelve hours—even _six_ is a lot for him—

When he stumbles down the stairs, Zack grins and waves from behind his plate piled high with eggs and toast. “Cloudy! You’re finally awake!”

Sephiroth just gives him a stoic nod, but Genesis smiles and says, “Good morning, little bird.”

Standing by the stove, Angeal flips something in the pan, and it sizzles loudly with grease. “Good morning, Cloud. The bacon’s almost done. Want any coffee?”

"Morning," Cloud says. "No thanks to the coffee." Too much caffeine makes him feel like his molecules are vibrating straight out of his body. It hadn’t been that bad before the mako, so he assumes his particular set of enhancements takes its stimulating effects and magnifies them tenfold to capitalize on energy efficiency or something. _Everyone reacts to mako differently,_ he vaguely remembers hearing in one of the lectures they’d been forced to sit in on before taking the SOLDIER exam; none of the other ex-SOLDIERs seem to suffer the same problem—in fact, the majority of them seem to be practically addicted—so this must be Cloud’s “different”… in addition to being short, apparently.

Either way, he saves drinking coffee for very, very, _very_ bad days.

He chooses to sit beside Zack and across from Sephiroth and Genesis, watching with wide eyes as Zack wolfs down his food at a record pace. Cloud's even more aware than most of how much SOLDIERs can eat—his body shares many of the same qualities, after all—but part of him still winces at seeing one person down that much food. He frequently sees many in Edge go hungry, and it seems food is getting scarcer and scarcer with each passing day even as the Planet supposedly heals from her wounds, so he always tries his best not to eat too much. He doesn’t _starve_ himself or anything—he still eats normal portions, and his body can handle any negative effects from hunger much better than a regular human's could anyways, so—

Having seen him eat during their AVALANCHE days, Tifa had originally been very concerned by how much he’d cut down, but he'd placated her with the same explanation he gives Sephiroth now as the man hands him a plate stacked just as high as Zack's. “I don’t need that much.”

A tiny wrinkle creases Sephiroth’s brow. “This is about half the normal portion for someone with First-level enhancements.”

“I only eat like that after a fight,” Cloud says. At Sephiroth’s dubious look, he says, “Really. I’ve seen enough differences between myself and ex-SOLDIERs to think that maybe… Hojo might have focused on efficiency instead of the, um, regular package when he was… you know.” Cloud makes a vague gesture towards himself.

And he really does mean _package,_ he thinks, eyeing the way Sephiroth’s corded muscles shift as he slowly nods and begins heaping a good portion of the food onto Zack’s empty plate. It’s eagerly accepted.

It’s not like his conjecture isn’t based on facts. His unusual reaction to caffeine and other stimulants, the way his fighting style and final limit break are based around bursts of speed rather than the constant brute strength most SOLDIERs favor, his… lesser height—

And unlike other ex-SOLDIERs, who all seem to have massive appetites twenty-four seven, he really does only truly _need_ to eat more than usual after a hard fight, or just after pulling wildly inhuman stunts in general. But he still always feels guilty whenever he does. And those instances will probably increase, if the monster population really is inexplicably surging like Rufus says—

Well. The revival of these four really does appear to be a bad omen. Problems just seem to be piling up one after another.

“Say, Cloud,” Zack says through a mouthful of toast, “you don’t happen to remember anything about, uh, last night, do you?”

Cloud blinks. “Last night?”

Zack looks a mixture between relieved and disappointed. “Guess that means you don’t, huh.”

Cloud frowns as he accepts his now much emptier plate from Sephiroth. He takes a bite and chews thoughtfully. What happened last night? The only nighttime activities he can think of that the others might not want him to notice are—

Cloud chokes on his eggs, cheeks flaming. _Abort thought right fucking now holy_ shit—

“Cloud!” Zack says, alarmed. “Are you okay?”

“F-fine,” Cloud wheezes.

“Angeal, get him some water, will you?” Genesis says, but he looks more amused than concerned, perfectly aware of where Cloud’s mind had leapt to.

Cloud accepts the glass gratefully. He barely takes a sip before his PHS rings, though, and he quickly sets it down to answer.

“Strife speaking—”

_“Cloud,”_ Reeve says, sounding uncharacteristically grim. _“I'm sorry to disturb you, but we’ve got a monster situation on our hands. You’re the closest to the area, and it’s urgent.”_

Cloud stands. “Where.”

“Cloud, you’ve barely eaten,” Angeal protests.

Cloud holds up a hand, listening intently to Reeve’s briefing as he runs through his options in his mind. He always keeps a set of battle-ready clothes in Fenrir’s compartments, so he’s covered on that end. He’ll have to leave the others behind if he prioritizes getting there quickly, but Rufus can't complain if it's for WRO-related work. Besides, they’ll be perfectly fine. They probably won’t burn down the house or anything. Probably.

“I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the fairy tale referenced in this chapter is the snow queen by hans christian anderson
> 
> if you’re in a weeb mood, minami’s [main actor](https://youtu.be/jb4ybTQwcdw) really helped me get into 16 yo cloud’s mindset! actually minami is a great Mood for anything really—i find [hollowness](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIRiduzNLzQ) in particular to be very good for angsty identity crisis cloud :)


	8. Chapter 8

Angeal knocks on Cloud’s door.

“Come in,” he hears Cloud say faintly from behind it, so he pushes it open and carefully steps inside.

Cloud is crouching as he laces up his boots, wearing an all-black ensemble that closely resembles a First’s uniform. “What do you need?” he asks without looking up.

Angeal watches, fascinated, as Cloud stands and straps on a complex-looking sword harness with quick, efficient movements. It’s fastened to a single black pauldron protecting his left shoulder by a silver wolf head that glints in the light. Then he picks up a pink ribbon laying on his bedside table and wraps it around his arm, somehow tying it into a neat bow with a single hand before Angeal can ask if he needs any help.

When he finishes, Cloud looks up at him expectantly, and Angeal suddenly remembers what he came to say. “Cloud, you don’t need to go alone. Any of us would be willing to accompany you and help. In fact, all of us would be glad to go.”

Cloud shakes his head as he grabs his sword from where it leans against the wall, sliding it into its harness, which still looks rather empty and much too complicated for a single sword. “I’m taking Fenrir. He can only carry three people max—two, if one of them is gonna be your size.”

“What if we joined you later?” Angeal says as he trails behind Cloud, leaving his room and going down the stairs.

“Do any of you have a sword?”

“No,” Angeal admits.

“Materia?”

“ … No.”

“Come now,” Genesis says, clearly having heard them as they’d come down the stairs. Zack and Sephiroth flank him just a step behind on either side. It’s certainly not the intended effect, but Angeal can’t help but think it looks like a rather pale attempt at intimidation. “Surely you’ve materia you can provide us with, Cloud. It always helps to have support from behind.”

Cloud frowns. “ … Most materia were artificial, so we don’t use them anymore. And I left most of them in Edge.”

_“Most_ of them?” Genesis raises a brow.

Cloud sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Here,” he says, looking vaguely irritated. He digs through his pocket and pulls out a small green orb, dropping it into Genesis’s hand. “You’re lucky I picked this up on my last run. Follow me if you want, I don’t have time to—to—look, if you decide to stay, just—I have to go. Don’t set the house on fire.”

After the front door slams, Genesis stares bemusedly down at the materia in his hand. “ … It’s an Ice.”

“Even without his memories, Cloud’s got a good grasp of your tendencies,” Angeal says idly.

“Perhaps he does,” Genesis says, “but he’s gotten one thing wrong. We are most definitely not staying here.”

When the four of them exit the villa, though, Cloud is already nowhere in sight. So Angeal approaches a pair of elderly women on the other side of the road, saying, “Excuse me, did you see which direction a blond man with a motorcycle—”

The woman on the right suddenly looks extremely disapproving, and Angeal is actually a little bit afraid. “So you’re the rascals responsible for him tearing off in such a state.”

“Cloud is a sweet boy,” the woman on the left says sternly. “If you aren’t going to treat him right, you don’t deserve him.”

“Um, actually—”

“No excuses!” The first woman looks like she’s debating whether she should rap him with her cane or not. “He brings me flowers, you know.”

“He delivers my son’s mail, free of charge,” the second woman says. “So if you aren’t chasing after him to _apologize on your hands and knees—”_

“Oh, don’t worry, we all know Cloud is an absolute _treasure,”_ Genesis purrs as he slinks up behind Angeal and slips an arm over his shoulders. “My apologies for any misunderstandings—we are most definitely going to make amends. Letting a pearl like him slip through our fingers would simply be—”

“All right, enough with your pretty words,” the first woman says crossly. “He went south. Towards the bay. Go on.”

-

_“Fuck,”_ Cloud says, ducking as another winged tentacle-stingray creature from hell tries to take off his head. The civilians who’d reported the situation have long since evacuated, but he wishes they’d been more specific; all Reeve had said was that the situation most definitely could not be handled by even a full squad of Seconds, and that is such a massive understatement it’s not even funny. “Emergency” brings many things to mind, but Cloud hadn’t expected a _mass exodus of Hojo’s unholy experiments from the bottom of the sea_ kind of emergency. What has even driven them all up to the surface? It's been almost ten years since he’s last gone down there, and the only things he remembers are fighting these creatures in the Gelnika and getting the crap scared out of him by the randomly-appearing Emerald WEAPON—

_Shit._ Is what’s happening to the Planet really bad enough to merit reviving the WEAPONs? First the four SOLDIERs, now the WEAPONs—

Cloud doesn’t have any more time to freak out, though, as a human-skulled monster with a head full of anemone-like tendrils lashes a whiplike tentacle out at him from one of its eye sockets. Jerking his attention back to the battle, he shifts to steering with his weight as he swiftly pulls two blades out of Fenrir’s compartments, slicing through the tentacle on his left, cleaving another lunging stingray in half on the right. A tell-tale crackle in the air has him swerving Fenrir to the side, and a bolt of lightning strikes where he’d been mere seconds ago. He swears again; he really did leave most of his materia at home, so he only has a Lightning and a Cure on him, and if the creatures absorb lightning—

Sharp yellow teeth nearly catch his clothes from behind, and Cloud whirls and guts the enormous lobster-like creature in a single stroke, slick green-yellow fluid— _bug juice,_ part of his mind thinks irrationally—splattering all over his face and arms.

He scans the area and does a quick count—two down, at least a dozen more to go—and gets to work. Slice through this one’s elongated turtle neck—one more down. Split this one’s lobster carapace—another. Cleave through the eerily human-like skin of these two as they swoop overhead—

Cloud yelps when something long and sticky wraps around his arm from behind, jerking him harshly off his motorcycle, and one of his swords slips from his grip. Fenrir keeps going, made to stay steady without a rider if need be, but Cloud—

“Cloud!” he hears someone call distantly.

_Shit,_ he thinks. _They actually came._ And sooner than he’d expected, too.

But this is no time for distraction. He nimbly twists midair, flipping around as he carves a line through the skull of the monster that had grabbed him, and the limb wrapped around his arm goes slack. He tears it off quickly, but another three monsters surround him. Scowling fiercely, he cleaves through all three at once, and as more gather around him, he reaches out and _calls_ to the materia fueling Fenrir’s engine. They respond eagerly, bringing Fenrir back around and barrelling towards him.

He grabs the handlebar and swings himself on as the motorcycle flies by, monsters scattering in their wake. Flipping open the compartments, he pulls out another blade—one of the pair with notched edges—just in time to knock away a pair of pouncing lobster-creatures.

Suddenly, a hissing screech rattles the air, setting Cloud’s teeth on edge, and _how the fuck had he not noticed the Serpent earlier—_

At least this one, though, he knows he can cast Bolt on. So he does with a _vengeance._

As the enormous blue-green sea snake writhes from the electricity, fins flapping wildly, he quickly weaves among the remaining monsters, and by the time they’re all taken care of, he can feel the energy of his Limit Break surging beneath his skin. The stress from the past few days has him gritting his teeth and going for overkill—not Omnislash, not for a mere Serpent, but—

“Climhazzard,” he murmurs, and his energy sparks blue in a gleeful affirmative.

-

Zack trips over someone's feet as he dashes down the hill, but he doesn’t care.

“Dude!” he yells, slamming into Cloud and twirling him round and round. “That was the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever seen! Your sword _splits into other swords?_ How fucking awesome is that? And your Limit Break—the way you just, _fwooosh,_ split right through that motherfucker, and—and— _that was just so cool!"_

It was also _really fucking hot,_ despite the frankly disgusting-looking monsters, but Zack doesn’t think Angeal would appreciate him saying that very much—

Cloud blinks owlishly down at Zack, looking a bit stunned, as if unsure of what to do with the compliment. “ … Thanks?”

“It was quite admirable,” Sephiroth says as he approaches, a hint of pride lurking in the upward curve of his mouth, and his eyes are dark and interested in a way Zack doesn’t often see outside of the bedroom.

“Were you steering with your _hips?”_ Genesis says, ever the pervert. _“Intriguing.”_

Cloud’s eyes dart—dare Zack say— _shyly_ over to Genesis. “I… modified Fenrir to be used in battle. He’s specially designed to be responsive to shifts in weight.”

“Dude!” Zack says again. “You _designed_ your own battle motorcycle? That’s so badass! Our adorable Spiky is all grown up!”

That’s _definitely_ a blush. Zack revels in it, pulling Cloud closer in a rib-crushing hug.

“Zack,” Cloud murmurs breathlessly right next to Zack’s ear. “I’m covered in monster blood.”

He could have said _Hojo’s dancing naked on the conference table in room 63_ in the same tone of voice and Zack’s blood couldn’t have rushed faster to his dick.

Zack’s arms fall slack, and Cloud lands on his ass with a quiet _oof._

“Sorry!” Zack says quickly.

Behind him, Genesis stifles a laugh with a delicate cough.

“Aw, shut up, Gen,” Zack says.

“Why, I didn’t say a thing,” Genesis says.

Angeal sighs, but he’s also hiding a laugh, Zack can _tell._ “Let’s just be on our way. Did you need to do anything else, Cloud? You picked up the sword you dropped, right?”

Cloud nods, brushing himself off as he stands. “We can head back together.”

They walk in silence for a while, Cloud wheeling his motorcycle beside him, until Angeal finally says, “By the way, sorry we couldn’t get there sooner. We didn’t get close enough for Genesis to cast until you were finished, not with a materia that low-leveled.”

“I was fine,” Cloud says, shrugging. “You really didn’t need to come.”

“You definitely handled the situation exceptionally well,” Angeal agrees. “A far cry better than the average First, and I’m proud of you. You’ve truly grown up, and we really… well. However, there's never anything wrong with some help every once in a while."

Cloud frowns. " … I know. But I’ve—if I needed help, I would have asked for it.”

“You never know what might happen,” Angeal points out. “Even the most skilled can be caught off guard. We just want to make sure you’re safe.”

Cloud frowns harder. “I—I _know,_ but you don’t need to treat me like—I just—I don’t… why…” He trails off, but his shoulders are tense. Finally, he looks away and mutters, “Whatever.”

“Cloud—”

“Let’s just go back.”

-

“Cloud,” Zack says after everyone else has already gone inside.

Cloud grunts in response as he wipes Fenrir clean of monster fluids, carefully ensuring that nothing has been damaged from the fight. He knows exactly what Zack wants to talk about, and Cloud most definitely doesn’t want to. Not when he himself isn’t sure why he reacted so badly.

Honestly, he’s a bit irritated with himself; usually killing monsters helps him feel less stressed, but he _still_ lost his temper, and over something as small as a simple _offer to help._ But he genuinely doesn’t know what to do with _concern_ like this, not over his physical wellbeing—he’s never doubted that his friends care for his emotional wellbeing, and they all look out for each other in battle, but they always push him to do more, go further. They’ve never actively tried to _protect_ him so he _doesn’t have to_ the way these men are trying—Hel, they don’t even have _weapons,_ what had they even expected to do—

His confusion leaves his reactions susceptible to the wave of—what? He’d say he feels almost offended, but he doesn’t value his fighting ability as anything more than a necessary skill, so that’s not the right word—

_(—hurt? disappointed? closer, but still not quite—)_

All he can say is it’s like Angeal’s words have prodded something sore and not-quite-healed over in his chest, breaking the scab and allowing the pus to ooze out.

And why do they all keep speaking to him as if they used to _know_ him? He hasn’t said anything about their strange throwaway statements from the past few days, but from what they’ve said, he could almost think that—

“Cloud,” Zack presses, and Cloud pauses in his inspection and stands.

“I am going to go take a shower,” he says very calmly, “and you all are going to make up for making me do your laundry for you yesterday.”

-

When Cloud comes down the stairs, hair still damp and dressed in his own newly-washed clothes, he hears Zack complain, “We gotta wash them all by _hand?”_

“It doesn’t look like we’ve got a dishwasher,” Angeal says. “So yes.”

“But there are _so many!”_ Spotting Cloud, Zack says, “Cloudy, why didn’t we get a dishwasher?”

“Dishwashers are a waste of both energy and water,” Cloud says. “ShinRa really screwed things up, so we have to do our part to try to fix it.”

“So that’s why we don’t have a clothes dryer, either,” Angeal realizes. “Seph and Gen were asking about that.”

“Hang them outside, it’s plenty hot,” Cloud says.

Angeal nods. “That’s what they figured, after seeing you yesterday.”

Cloud blinks and looks out the window, and sure enough, he sees two heads of hair, one silver, one red, bobbing up and down as they hang clothes on the line. He almost laughs at the sight of two of the greatest SOLDIER Firsts _hanging laundry,_ but then he catches Zack struggling with the burnt bits of eggs stuck on the bottom of a pan, and he sighs. “I’ll help you with the dishes, Zack.”

Cloud often claims dish duty in Seventh Heaven to avoid having to wait or bartend, so the sink clears fairly quickly with Zack and Cloud washing and Angeal drying and racking. When Zack reaches to scrape vegetable peels into the trash though, Cloud opens his mouth to say—

“That goes in the compost, pup. That silver bucket over there with the lid.”

Cloud blinks up in surprise at Angeal. “You… compost?"

“I had a bit of a gardening hobby,” Angeal says. “So I’d compost, yes. I’ll admit it was less for the sake of the environment than for my plants, but…”

“Oh,” Cloud says softly. He’s well aware that the stereotype is wildly incorrect, but part of him is still bewildered by the thought of a SOLDIER of all people, one of ShinRa’s perfect weapons, carefully tending to the very life they were engineered to destroy. But to another part, the image of the broad, dark-haired man burying his fingers in the dirt, sweetly coaxing something small and green to sprout with gentle love and care seems so _fitting,_ and it’s that part that offers, “I… had a friend who grew flowers in the Slums.”

“Aerith,” Angeal says, nodding somberly. “They were beautiful. Zack told us about what happened, but…”

“I take care of them now. I’ll take you guys to see someday.”

Angeal smiles. “We’d all like that.”

Cloud almost smiles back, then shifts uncomfortably. “Listen, about earlier, I—”

“I’m sorry,” Angeal says. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like I didn’t have faith in your abilities. That battle… I may have had a hard time envisioning it before, but you definitely made it clear that you can protect yourself, now, quite possibly better than any of us other than Seph. But that doesn’t mean we still don’t care about you or your safety, just as you would care for any of ours.”

Cloud sighs. “I’m sorry too, I got offended over things that weren’t actually said. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. But why…”

“Why?” Angeal prompts gently.

Cloud has many things he wants to ask. _Why do you care so much about someone you just met._ _Why do you all seem so sad when you look at me. Why do you speak to me as if you knew me, actually knew me, all those years ago._

But instead, he just says, “Do you see those empty jugs on the counter?”

Angeal looks bewildered. “Yes?”

“Go put one in each toilet tank for me, will you?”

-

Late that night, Sephiroth bumps into Cloud alone in the hall. Fresh out of the shower, his long hair drips dark streaks onto the towel slung over his shoulders, and Cloud’s eyes flicker to the beads of water clinging to the fabric. The air is thick with nearly-palpable electric tension even as Cloud visibly forces his shoulders to relax, but Sephiroth’s come to anticipate the strange tingling that accompanies any time spent in proximity with him.

It still doesn’t explain the strange flash of _warmthprotectionlovefamily,_ of _home_ strongly overlaid with something distinctly _Genesis_ he’d felt a few days ago, or how sometimes he feels like he can hear a strange pressure of words just beyond the edges of his perception, but—

“Sephiroth,” Cloud says.

Sephiroth blinks down at him, long and slow. “Cloud,” he greets.

“Sephiroth,” Cloud says again. “I… asked someone who knew your mom, your real mom, to come by. He should be here tomorrow. If you want to speak to him—”

Sephiroth’s eyes widen, and an odd feeling leaps in his chest. “My—mother? Lucrecia?”

Cloud nods. “I thought you might want to hear about her? If you don’t—”

“I do,” Sephiroth says. “But you asked—for me?”

“Well, yeah,” Cloud says. “Who am I to deny you information about your own mother?”

Sephiroth is silent for a moment, then he ducks his chin in acknowledgement. “ … Thank you,” he says lowly. For Cloud to offer _him_ of all people such consideration… But Cloud has always loved being helpful, always given up so much of himself, and asked so little in return.

True to form, Cloud shakes his head. “Don’t thank me—any decent person would do it.”

“Still, I—” Sephiroth is torn. A simple verbal thanks is nowhere near enough for something so precious, but his usual methods for thanking Cloud are inappropriate considering current circumstances— “ … I am in your debt,” he finally decides to say with a stiff nod. “I…”

“What Seph is trying to say,” Zack says, sticking his head out of his door, “is that he wants to give you a hug in thanks, Cloudy, but he’s afraid to ask. You’d better take pity on him.”

A hint of pink crawls across Cloud’s face. “I—Zack! You can’t just—say that, there’s no way he—”

“He hugged you the other night,” Zack points out, and Sephiroth ducks his head further.

“I’m sorry,” Cloud says to him, a bit helplessly.

Sephiroth doesn’t want to make Cloud uncomfortable, but he wants to deny what Zack has said even less, lest Cloud cement the wrong ideas in his head, so he quickly casts about for a different subject. His mind immediately falls to— “I… would like to compliment you on your fighting earlier today. I’ve never seen anything quite so—I’ve never seen anything like it. You… dance.”

And Cloud really does _dance—_ a mesmerizing dance of death, destructive grace in a storm of sheer carnage. It’s raw and untamed and free, a mismatched yet seamless tangle of styles clearly acquired from experience rather than training, all the more breathtaking for its sheer unpredictability. Not a movement is inefficient or without an understated elegance. They’d all vaguely known that Cloud had defeated Sephiroth, of course, and even seen the scars as proof, but seeing him _move_ before his very eyes—Cloud really would be capable of keeping up with him, and the thought of finally finding his equal has something in him stirring, red coals long banked finally sparking into a blazing inferno—

But Sephiroth is sure a spar with Cloud would bring back terrible memories for the blond man, so to ask for one would be exceedingly inconsiderate. He finds himself crushingly disappointed.

Cloud is silent for a long time, though, and Sephiroth worries that even his compliment had been unwelcome. Perhaps it sounds disparaging or mocking coming from a former enemy.

Finally, though, Cloud just sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “When I was a trooper, I’d—I don’t know, have grand visions that you’d sweep in, all imposing, and say that to me. I thought it’d make me feel like I was _worth_ something—dumb, I know. Later, I was disgusted that I’d based my sense of self-worth on _Sephiroth,_ the madman who’d destroyed my hometown, who’d mercilessly killed Aerith, who we were chasing around Gaia twice over to kill, but you were still this towering figure I couldn’t ever reach. You’re—you’re not either of the men I used to see you as, but you’ve always been a swordsman I respect. So… thanks. I guess.”

Sephiroth simply nods. "I deeply respect you as a swordsman as well, and I'm glad neither of us hold our previous mindsets. I am proud to acknowledge you as my equal."

Cloud's eyes widen. “ … Uh.”

Sephiroth nods again, this time in farewell. “Good night.”

“ … Good night,” Cloud says, stunned, eyes following Sephiroth sweep back into his room, and behind him, Sephiroth can hear Zack groan exasperatedly.

“You’re both hopeless. You should have just hugged it out.”

_“Zack…”_

-

Something creaks gently, and Zack wakes with a start from his nightmare, the cold emptiness in his arms sparking a round of gut-wrenching panic—

There’s a quiet shuffling against the sheets and the mattress dips slightly, almost hiding something that could be a choked-off breath, and Zack is brought hurtling back into the present.

“ … Cloud?” he croaks, and the mattress shifts again in response.

“Zack?” Cloud’s voice is nearly inaudible, but Zack still hears how it cracks.

“Cloud?” Zack says again, rubbing his eyes as he sits up. “What are you doing in here? Did you have a nightmare?”

A pair of glowing blue eyes blink up at him in the darkness from Cloud’s perch on the very edge of the bed. “I… didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Zack frowns. “You must’ve come in here for a reason, though, right?”

Cloud’s eyes dim as his eyelids lower. “I just had to check that—that you were really… but I don’t want to bother you. I’ll just leave—”

Zack huffs a heavy sigh as he ruffles his own hair. “I was actually… having a nightmare like that, too. That’s what woke me up, not you. But I’m glad it did. If you’re having a nightmare, then I _want_ to wake up. Especially if you came into my room in the middle of the night because of it. Cloud… you helped me with my nightmares. Why can’t I help you with yours? No, that’s not right, I—I _want_ to help you with yours.”

“ … I get them a lot,” Cloud says, but his eyes flick back up to Zack, filled with something like fragile hope.

“That’s fine,” Zack insists. “I get them every night you’re not here. So you’d actually be helping me out more than I can even help you.”

“Zack,” Cloud says, and he bites his lip as he scoots closer. “I… can I…” He reaches out a hand instead of finishing his question, but Zack knows exactly what he is asking for.

Zack grabs his hand desperately, wrapping his shaking fingers around Cloud’s own, and he pulls Cloud as close as physically possible, finally filling the empty space in his arms. “Do you even need to ask?”

-

Cloud is woken by knocking at the door, and he stirs underneath the heavy weight of Zack’s arm.

“Cloud, I think someone you know is here to see you,” Angeal calls from outside.

Cloud blinks, taking a moment to process, then flings Zack’s arm off of him as he sits up. “Shit, Vincent’s here.”

Zack rolls over and mumbles into the pillow, “Nngh, f’ve more m’nutes, ‘Geal.”

Cloud tosses the covers aside, too, ignoring Zack’s startled noise, and rolls off the bed. Angeal gives him a strange look as he opens the door, most likely judging his messy bedhead and the distressed wrinkles in his clothes, but Cloud doesn’t care. The monster guts from yesterday were worse.

“He was just… in the kitchen when I went to cook breakfast,” Angeal says, looking a bit worried. “He says he knows you, though, and he hasn’t done anything but… just stand there?”

“That’s Vincent,” Cloud says, and he can’t suppress the fond upwards quirk of his lips. Zack and Sephiroth exit their rooms, one with sleepy grumbling and the other just as composed as ever, and they all head down the stairs together.

The familiar sight of Vincent standing in the kitchen, clothed in his tattered red cape as always, is honestly the most reassuring thing that’s happened to Cloud these past few hectic days, and the fond quirk of his lips breaks into an outright smile. “Vincent!”

Vincent raises a subtle brow at Cloud’s unusual enthusiasm, but nods back. “Cloud,” he greets in his usual stoic manner. Then his gaze drops to the silver-haired man standing behind him.

“Sephiroth."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my strifentine bias is showing and i am Unashamed

"You are… the man Cloud requested to speak with me about my mother?" Sephiroth says. Cloud can see the doubt in his eyes, but he doesn't blame him; Vincent most definitely doesn't look his age.

Vincent only inclines his head, studying Sephiroth carefully. Finally, he says, "I see what you meant, Cloud."

Cloud nods, relieved. Vincent is one of very few people who would never doubt Cloud's judgment, not on cases concerning Sephiroth, but having his favorable second opinion is still reassuring.

"Cloud," Genesis says, sounding a bit put out over his cup of coffee, "who exactly is this lovely gentleman?"

Oh. Right. Manners and such. "Sorry," Cloud says. "Everyone, this is Vincent. Vincent, this is Zack, Genesis, Angeal, and—Sephiroth."

Vincent takes in each man with his intense gaze, then nods, turning back to Cloud. A single raised brow is enough for Cloud to know what Vincent is asking.

"Upstairs bedroom on the very left is free."

Vincent nods again, then beckons to Sephiroth before sweeping up the stairs without a backwards glance.

Sephiroth blinks, puzzled, and Cloud reassures, “Go on. He wants you to follow.”

-

Sephiroth’s brow furrows as the red-cloaked man—Vincent—explains the role he played in Sephiroth’s past. Strangely, completely unlike the way his rage had surged when reading about JENOVA and the Cetra, he feels numb, detached. Perhaps it is because he grew up thinking that _Jenova_ had been the name of his mother, not _Lucrecia,_ but the story feels distant, as if pertaining to a stranger, and when Vincent finally finishes, looking at him expectantly, Sephiroth just nods.

“Thank you. I will think on this.”

Vincent nods back. “I… apologize. None of this would have happened if I had just—”

“It was Hojo,” Sephiroth says sharply. He hadn’t thought he could hate the madman even more after finding out what had happened to Zack and Cloud, but this—hearing of how he’d stolen Sephiroth’s last chance at a normal childhood with a single gunshot and a dead Turk at his feet, how he’d driven his birth mother to grief-induced self-imprisonment—

When Sephiroth stands to leave, though, Vincent says, “What are your intentions toward Cloud?”

Sephiroth pauses. “Toward Cloud?”

“The way you—all of you—look at him is obvious. What are your intentions?”

Sephiroth takes a moment to contemplate this. Finally, he says stiffly, "We intend to make up for past hurts."

"See to it that you do," Vincent says. "Any more than that—Cloud may not be ready.”

Sephiroth frowns. “Cloud does not appreciate this sort of overprotective behavior, even behind his back.”

“He doesn’t,” Vincent agrees. “But it simply doesn’t occur to him that people may be genuinely attracted to him for more than his appearance or accomplishments. Don’t assume things are the same as in whatever your shared past was. If you aren’t careful, your actions may do more damage than you think.”

“ … Cloud has made that more than apparent on his own over the past few days,” Sephiroth says, “but the advice is appreciated.”

Vincent nods once, then sweeps out of the room, red cloak billowing out behind him.

Sephiroth takes a moment to stare down at his hands and breathe in, breathe out, carefully stowing away the new information on his past. Then he joins everyone else downstairs just in time to hear Genesis say, “So Cloud tells us _you’re_ the one responsible for the end of Deepground. I’ve always wanted to meet the man who took down Weiss and Nero.”

“ … Hm,” Vincent says. They’re all seated around the kitchen table, breakfast plates long emptied, Zack and Angeal and Genesis on one side, Sephiroth joining Cloud and Vincent on the other. Genesis glowers jealously over his long-cooled mug of coffee at the way Cloud and Vincent sit unusually close to each other.

“What happened with Deepground, anyways?” Angeal asks. “The newspapers weren’t very clear.”

Vincent is silent for a beat. Then he says, “They wished to cleanse the world using one of the Planet’s WEAPONs, Omega. It is said that it will carry the Lifestream to a new host planet when this one dies. Chaos is its herald.”

“Okay, so, world-ending agenda, very nice,” Zack says. “So you guys all… teamed up together to take them down?”

“I had a… more personal stake in the matter,” Vincent says, “but essentially, yes. The Chaos project was led by my father and his assistant, Lucrecia Crescent.”

“Hey, that’s Seph’s mom!” Zack says, bouncing in place.

Vincent ducks his chin slightly lower into his collar, and Cloud brushes a shoulder gently against his in support. It seems to give the dark-haired man strength to continue speaking about the clearly painful and personal subject. “I was… subjected to experimentation that led to myself hosting several demons, one of which being Chaos, as well as the Protomateria necessary to control it. The Tsviets—Deepground’s elite soldiers—sought me out because of that. Ultimately, I was the one who killed them all.”

“I see,” Genesis says thoughtfully. “And where were you, then, Cloud?”

Vincent coughs, and Cloud shoots him a sharp glare.

“That sounds like a story,” Zack says, glancing sharply between the two men as they seem to hold an entire argument through eye contact alone.

The corner of Vincent’s mouth quirks up, but all he says is, “Cloud joined the rest of AVALANCHE later to assist in the assault on Midgar. As for the Tsviets and Omega—”

“Vincent always respects when I need to fight my own battles,” Cloud says, “so I do the same for him.”

They share another look, Vincent raising his brows, and Cloud shakes his head slightly. Vincent frowns, but simply says, “That is the gist of things. From what I understand, Genesis’s cells were used to further enhance the Tsviets. However, the reports held no indication of your survival.”

“They _did_ ask me to join them,” Genesis says, casually examining his fingernails. “I refused and left, of course. They didn’t dare stop me.”

“He was asleep for most of the time,” Angeal informs them. “He woke up for a bit because he wanted to take down ShinRa, but…”

Genesis puffs up indignantly. “The job had already long been accomplished—what else could I do but return and await the day the Planet truly needed my services?”

“ … I see,” Vincent says.

Cloud sighs and rises to his feet, beginning to gather up the empty plates. “Good to know. If we’re done—”

Vincent catches his wrist. “I’ll do it.”

“Vincent—”

“When was the last time you slept?”

Cloud pauses. “ … Last night?”

“Don’t lie. You’re exhausted. Go sleep.”

“But—” Cloud’s eyes dart to the rest of them, who are avidly watching the interaction, and suddenly, Sephiroth realizes there are faint shadows under his eyes—they're subtle, almost invisible, but for a SOLDIER they indicate extreme exhaustion. He scolds himself. Of course Cloud wouldn’t be showing the same signs of tiredness they’d be used to looking for—the mako would have eliminated most of them. But who is Vincent to Cloud, to be able to so easily detect the faint changes in his mood, to so casually reach out and touch him when Cloud has always shied away from theirs?

“I’ll keep watch,” Vincent says solemnly, and something tense in the line of Cloud’s shoulders relaxes for the first time since they saw him in the WRO’s hangar.

“I’ll… be on the couch, then,” Cloud says. “If anything comes up—”

“I know,” Vincent says, and Cloud takes another moment to scan his face, then nods and sets the stack of dishes down.

As he exits without another word, Genesis’s jaw drops incredulously. “What the—how did you _do_ that?”

-

Cloud wakes on the couch to something soft and warm tucked under his chin. It’s well-worn when he runs his hands over it, carefully mended along the edges and clearly loved. It smells like Vincent, something velvet-dark and musky like midnight with faint traces of gunpowder, so when he opens his eyes to a mass of red, he can only arrive at one conclusion, no matter how unlikely it seems.

Vincent _never_ parts with his cape; he guards it almost jealously. Cloud hasn’t seen him without it once. He won’t lie and say he hasn’t been tempted to snag it once or twice—it just looks so soft and dramatically flowy. And now that he finally gets the luxury of feeling it, it doesn’t disappoint. Cloud spends a good five minutes just relishing in the texture as he rubs the cloth against his cheek.

Then he glances around, listening hard for voices. The sun is still bright and high as it glares through the windows, but it casts shadows opposite to the ones in the morning, so it must be afternoon. He’d taken off his pants earlier—cargo pants aren’t exactly comfortable to sleep in—but now they’re folded neatly and placed on the arm of the couch rather than discarded carelessly on the ground where he’d left them, so he assumes Vincent must have done it when he’d come to give him his cloak. Cloud makes a mental note to thank him.

He leaves them there as he rises from the couch, tucking the cloak’s excess fabric close around him as he stands and makes his way towards the faint murmuring in the kitchen. It may be ridiculously long, but there’s no way he’s giving up the once-in-a-lifetime chance of wearing Vincent’s cape.

Zack is the first to spot him. “Cloud! You’re awake! Did you sleep okay?”

Angeal shuts the refrigerator door and gives him a smile. “We’re not sure where your friend Vincent disappeared off to, but we just got back from getting some groceries. We weren’t sure what you might’ve wanted, though, so I hope you’re fine with grilled fish for dinner. Are you hungry? You missed lunch—I can cut some watermelon.”

“It’s fine,” Cloud says. “And don’t worry about Vincent, he does that. He should be—”

“Here.” Vincent doesn’t bat an eye as Zack nearly chokes on his own spit from his sudden appearance. Even Sephiroth pauses in unpacking the groceries from their bags to stare.

“Your cloak is mine now,” Cloud tells him, unruffled. “Thanks, by the way.”

Vincent just nods. “ … You should not sleep partially unclothed with strangers in the house.”

Cloud shrugs. “It’s my house. Besides, they’ve seen worse.”

“Worse,” Vincent says with a sigh. “Right.”

“You came here from the cave, right? Where are you heading after this?”

“You are going to Edge tomorrow,” Vincent says, a statement rather than a question, and Cloud nods, used to not questioning his strange Turkish information-gathering ways. “I will join you.”

“Wait, we’re going to Edge?” Zack says. “You worked it out already?”

“What do you mean ‘already’?” Genesis says. “I was unaware of this development.”

“You did say we’d visit the church ‘someday’, but this is a little unexpected,” Angeal says.

Cloud blinks. “Oh, did I forget to tell you?”

-

“So… what’s this about an emergency meeting?” Zack says. He’s the last to enter the master bedroom, the other three Firsts already cuddled up on the bed and watching him expectantly.

“It’s about _Vincent,_ of course,” Genesis says.

Zack pauses, then clambers over Angeal’s legs and settles against Sephiroth’s chest. “Okay, that’s fair. He and Cloud seem super close, and the way Cloud smiled when he first saw him… You don’t think—Cloud never said he wasn’t dating _anyone—”_

“That man was _glaring at me_ for nearly the entire day,” Genesis says, sounding supremely offended. “And did you see how Cloud was wearing that Goddess-forsaken cloak for the entire day? Cloud looked utterly delighted, too.”

“He’s got Cloud’s best interests in mind, I think,” Angeal says. “He gave Cloud that cloak because you were staring daggers at his ass when he was sleeping, Gen. _I_ would have covered Cloud up if he hadn’t done it sooner.”

Genesis sniffs. “Still. Who is he to Cloud to be doing such things?"

“ … I don’t think they’re in a relationship,” Sephiroth says. “Vincent warned me that Cloud doesn’t see himself as attractive, and most likely isn’t ready for what we are asking of him. He’s most likely simply caring for Cloud as a close friend.”

“A very close friend,” Angeal agrees. “He knows Cloud well—you can see just from the way they interact. I’m actually glad Cloud has someone like him to look out for him. It’d be best for us to heed his advice.”

“We can’t simply give up just because an overprotective anemic man tells us to,” Genesis protests. “So what if he doesn’t approve of us?”

“We’re not giving up,” Angeal says. “We’re just… reevaluating things.”

Genesis huffs, but settles back further into the soft bed, and for a moment, they lie there in silence.

“I should go soon,” Zack says, despite really not wanting to move. They haven’t taken much time to really relax and spend time together, too busy worrying about the situation with Cloud and the strange new future they’ve been plunged into. “Cloudy’s gonna start wondering where I am if this takes too long.”

“That’s right! You sly dog,” Genesis accuses. “You’ve managed to co-opt him into sleeping with you every night, haven’t you?”

“I didn’t _co-opt_ him,” Zack protests. “No tricks or anything. Besides, you’ve got Angeal as your cuddle buddy, haven’t you? The one who should be complaining is Seph, not you.”

“Sephiroth is welcome to join us down here whenever he’d like,” Genesis says.

Sephiroth shakes his head. “Cloud can easily hear if I leave my room.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Zack says. “He knows about the four of us anyways, so he wouldn’t wonder about you going downstairs to join Gen and Angeal. He actually asked me earlier why I didn’t sleep with you guys instead for my nightmares.”

“Oh?” Angeal says, stroking Zack’s hair. “What was your answer, then?”

“The truth.” Zack sighs. “It just isn't the same. I love you all, but… after that year on the run, I always get so anxious whenever I let him out of my sight. And the _dreams—_ sometimes his eyes are so blank again, and he just stares at me accusingly while bleeding out without so much as twitching a finger. Sometimes we’re caught, and he gets ripped away from me and then we’re back in the labs with no escape. Sometimes I set him down for just a few minutes to get food or to scout ahead or to fight troopers off and when I get back, he’s just _gone._ But the worst ones are where I willingly leave him behind, where I know I have to live with that awful decision eating through me every day for the rest of my life. And the worst part is that back then sometimes I’d really _think_ about it too—that surely I wouldn’t be able to take a step further with him on my back when I wasn’t even sure if I could keep going with my _own_ weight, that we’d both die if I didn’t _do_ something, that maybe it’d be better for one of us to survive than _neither_ and clearly it wouldn’t be him if he couldn’t even lift his _head—”_

“But you didn’t,” Sephiroth says. He presses a kiss to Zack’s forehead, as if to ward off all the creeping, terrible thoughts. “That’s what matters.”

-

“Shiva, I can’t believe I gotta drag my ass across the continent to ferry you lot around, yo,” Reno grouses as he leans against his helicopter. “First to Midgar, then to Edge, then all the way back to Costa del Sol… next thing ya know, we'll be headin’ for the godsdamned Gold Saucer for a joyride!”

“Whoa, the Gold Saucer is still there after all these years? I wanna go! Can we go? Can we? Can we?” Zack bounces up and down.

“Hell no, you spiky ass! I got better things to do than play chaperone as you dick around in the arcade or what the hell ever.”

“You can just drop us off outside of Midgar,” Cloud says. “We can get to Edge on our own.”

“An’ miss a chance to see Tifa in all her busty glory? You’ve got even less hot blood than a cactuar if you think any dude with functioning balls is gonna pass that chance up, yo.”

“Your balls aren't gonna be functioning much longer if you speak like _that_ around her.” For Reno’s own good, Cloud decides, “Just… drop us off, okay? Somewhere on the outskirts. _Not_ close to the route from Edge.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got you, don’t want the civilians to throw a hissy fit at the sight of your resident walking shampoo commercial, yo.” Reno waves a hand nonchalantly. “You takin’ Fenrir?”

Cloud eyes the four Firsts as well as Vincent, who’d inexplicably decided to ride in the helicopter with them rather than fly himself. “No,” he decides. “It’ll be a tight fit as it is. Are you sure six people isn’t too much?”

“Nah, we chillin’, yo. That just means we’ll have plenty of time to become real good friends. I’m sure we’re all lookin’ forward to it—ain’t that right, Zack, old buddy old pal?”

Zack frowns. “I dunno, man, I'm not sure if I've forgiven the Turks for basically leaving me and Spiky to be experimented on. And the plate—”

Reno waves a hand airily as he clambers into the pilot's seat to fiddle with the controls. “Water under the bridge, yo! That was _years_ ago—even chocobo-head's already gotten over it. Younger me was a _very_ different person.”

“Don't call me chocobo-head, Reno.”

“Yeah, yeah, you got it, Goldilocks. Yo, Zack, you ever seen _anything_ as sweet as my baby here? I'm tellin’ you, technology’s really improved since y'all kicked the bucket! Get your spiky ass over here and check it out! The rest of you, all aboard the Reno Express!” He winks. “It’s guaranteed to give you the ride of your life.”

-

“I’ll lead,” Cloud says after Reno drops them off with a jaunty wave. “Be careful. The ruins can still be unstable.”

“The ruins?” Angeal asks, alarmed. Of course they know Midgar had been destroyed, they’d all read the newspapers, but to call them _ruins—_

Cloud gestures as they crest the hill they are currently standing on. “ … There’s not much else you can call a city after a giant space rock almost falls onto it.”

Zack sucks in a breath. The last he’d seen of Midgar had been on that cliff, so long ago, and it’d been fully intact. Now, though…

The once-monolithic city is now a broken wreck. Almost none of its characteristic tall gray buildings are still standing—a particularly large chunk is missing from the top of what used to be ShinRa Building, as if someone had taken a giant sword and carved it off. Steel beams teeter ominously from their precarious positions balanced in the wreckage. Concrete slabs lay crumbling, twisted bits of metal protruding from their jagged edges like monstrous claws reaching for the sky. Nearly none of the plate is left intact, gaping holes revealing what remains of the slums underneath.

Cloud glances back at the four of them, standing stock-still in their shock, and says, not unkindly, “We should keep moving.”

As they pick their way down the hill and into the city, stirring up dusty ghosts from a tragedy long past, the silence is only broken by the occasional clatter of disturbed rubble and occasional low cursing whenever someone loses footing, none of them used to traversing ruins. Cloud, however, moves with a straightforward ease, making a beeline for Sector 5. He must take this way often.

Zack glances back, watching a disgruntled-looking Genesis stumble as the piece of concrete he steps on gives way beneath him, sending bits of debris skittering downward. Angeal grabs Genesis’s arm, steadying him before he can lose his balance completely. Vincent trails silently behind the pair. In front of them all, Sephiroth shadows exactly a pace and a half behind Cloud, seemingly unperturbed by the treacherous footing. His stiff, raised shoulders tell a different story, though—for all he keeps his expressions a blank slate, his shoulders always give away his emotions.

After tripping one too many times, Genesis complains, “We couldn’t have taken that route from Edge you mentioned earlier?”

That’s right, Zack thinks. Cloud had said there was a route from the new city, Edge, but this obviously isn’t it—they’re clearly still not trusted enough to be around defenseless civilians.

It’s all right, though. Zack understands. He probably wouldn’t trust them either.

But instead, Cloud answers, “We don’t want people seeing Sephiroth. They might freak.”

“Don’t they think he’s dead, though?” Angeal says.

Cloud shrugs. “It wouldn’t be the first time he’s come back from the dead.”

“But the newspapers said that my death was faked in Nibelheim,” Sephiroth says, beginning to sound a bit confused.

Cloud pauses. “Other than that. It’s, uh, happened once or twice.”

_“When?”_

“You… read about the Bahamut SIN summon that attacked Edge in the papers, right?” At their nods, Cloud says, “Sephiroth… might have had something to do with that.”

Sephiroth frowns. “Then—”

“We fought, yeah,” Cloud says, eyes distant as he scans the skyline. “That was the last time, though.”

Sephiroth follows his gaze up to ShinRa Building, at the missing chunk that suddenly seems a lot more ominous. “I thought that the way parts of the building were carved off looked suspicious, but I’d heard we’d fought in the Northern Crater, so I pushed it out of mind. But if we truly did fight here as well, then…”

Cloud grimaces. “Getting buildings thrown at you is not fun.”

 _“Gods,”_ Zack says. “Cloud—”

“Everything worked out in the end,” Cloud says. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Speaking of that series of incidents, though,” Angeal says. “The newspapers said something about the Geostigma cure originating from Aerith’s church, right?”

Cloud nods. “It’s a healing spring. Actually, now that I think about it—you all should take a dip when we get there.”

Angeal blinks. “What does that have to do with us?”

“You were degrading before you died, weren’t you?” Cloud says.

“That’s right,” Angeal says, remembering. “Seph mentioned that degradation and Geostigma were both caused by J-cells.”

“I was cured of my degradation by the Goddess herself,” Genesis says haughtily. “Angeal looks perfectly fine as well, now—not a gray hair in sight. And of course Sephiroth never degraded at all, beloved hero of the Goddess he is. There is no need—”

Cloud comes to a sudden halt and turns. The look in his eyes is deadly serious. “All SOLDIERs were injected with J-cells as part of their enhancements. It kept the mako from killing them, repurposed it to make them stronger instead. It was a delicate balance: too much mako and they’d go comatose. Too much virus and they’d mutate beyond recognition. The more they were injected with, the stronger they became, and no one considered what’d happen when that fragile balance was tipped. One way or another, by the end, they all degraded. Don’t let your jealousy blind you, _Commander—_ the higher they are, the harder they fall. Do you really believe that _General Sephiroth,_ the paragon of SOLDIER itself, would escape the same fate?”

It’s the most Cloud has spoken in a single breath since they’ve woken up in this strange, nonsensical future. Genesis is silent.

Cloud clenches his jaw, then sets another brisk pace across the rubble. “Any other questions?”

“One more,” Angeal says. “If Geostigma is caused by J-cells like degradation is, how did perfectly normal civilians get infected? I don’t see ShinRa scientists letting a dangerous substance like that out of their sight—more for the sake of eliminating competition than ethical reasons, but—”

Cloud hums, thinking for a moment. “Well… you all read about Meteorfall, right?”

“The papers were rather irritatingly vague,” Genesis says. “Although it was amusing to read their panicked reactions to an enormous rock from outer space threatening to wipe out their petty existences.”

 _“Whoa,_ Gen,” Zack says. “Your sadistic streak is really showing there.”

Genesis shrugs. “It turned out fine, didn’t it? The civilians were evacuated. The majority of them survived. In hindsight, it is only such life-threatening things that force us to realize how utterly _meaningless_ the lives we’ve led have been.”

Cloud blinks. “Right. Well—long story short, Meteor was planned by JENOVA. She knew that the Lifestream would expose itself to shield the Planet, so she used the chance to infect it. Her cells got into the wildlife, the water, the people… and their bodies turned on themselves trying to get rid of her presence.”

“So Geostigma is akin to an autoimmune disease,” Sephiroth says.

“Yeah, I mean, so’s degradation. It’s just a bit more… dramatic.”

“Having excruciatingly painful seizures and bleeding black tar from your pores seems quite dramatic enough,” Sephiroth says. “But it _would_ be fitting for Genesis, of all people, to suffer from something even more so.”

Genesis bristles. _“Excuse_ you—”

Zack tunes out Genesis’s ensuing rant to watch a strange expression bloom across Cloud’s face. He studies Sephiroth with a furrowed brow, lips parted slightly.

Picking up his pace to nudge Cloud's side, Zack asks quietly, “Cloud? Are you okay? You’ve got the weirdest look on your face.”

Cloud looks up at him with large eyes bluer than blue and says, “I’m fine. I’ve just… never seen Sephiroth joke like this before. It’s kinda jarring. But nice, I guess.”

On the outside, Zack laughs and nudges Cloud again and says cheerily, “Well, even the big scary General can’t be cold and stiff all the time, ya know?”

But on the inside, all Zack can think is, _If one small joke makes you look at him like this, how_ do _you see him?_

-

They enter the church through a collapsed part of the wall. Wide-eyed, the four Firsts take in the age-softened wooden pews, the dirt-scuffed floor, the sparkling pool of clear water with bright yellow and white flower petals scattered over the surface. Two children play together by the water in a patch of blooming flowers of the same colors, petals full and bright with life.

“They’re beautiful,” Angeal says. “You take good care of them, Cloud.”

Cloud looks at his feet, a bit bashful from the praise. “I don’t do much. Aerith does most of the work.”

Her presence is always stronger here, in the church, and he comes here often in hopes for a chance to clear his head, maybe a whisper from beyond the Lifestream, or a nudge in the right direction. It’s become a permanent enough routine that the kids know to not bother him when he sits in an isolated corner of the church and shuts his eyes. Sometimes, though, they’ll creep up on him to sneak flowers in his hair, or perch in his lap, or settle against his side. When he wakes, they clamber all over him as they clamor for his attention, giggling over how long it takes him to notice the increasingly ostentatious floral arrangements on his head. He won’t lie and say it isn’t comforting that at least the children aren’t afraid to treat him normally, no matter how nervous some adults get around him, and he smiles fondly as he watches them play together.

“So that’s the spring,” Zack says, looking a bit sad. “It definitely feels like Aerith. She’d love how pretty this place has become.”

“Is there… anything we should do in particular?” Angeal says. “Uh, a prayer to the Planet, maybe?”

The corner of Cloud’s mouth kicks up. “You don’t have to say anything for the Planet to heal you. There’s no fancy ceremony—all you have to do is step in. Although…” Cloud contemplates them. “Just to be safe, you might want to dunk yourselves all the way.”

Zack laughs. “All right, then! A little bit of water never scared Zack Fair!” Zack’s cheer draws the attention of the two kids in the church, and their eyes instantly snap to Cloud.

“Cloud’s here!” A small girl with fine, dark hair up in lopsided pigtails launches herself at Cloud with a wide, gap-toothed grin.

Cloud catches her easily, holding her slightly away from the sword slung over his back. “Hey, Krista. Be careful of Tsurugi, remember?”

“Okay!” She digs her hands into his hair happily, and Cloud winces slightly. When she pulls her hands back, there’s a white flower sitting behind his left ear, a bit askew.

An equally tiny boy with wild mud-brown hair and dark eyes makes his way over too, hanging back hesitantly to unsuccessfully hide his eagerness. “Why you gotta do this every time, Krista?” he complains. “It’s dumb.”

“But Cloud looks so pretty with flowers in his hair!”

“It’s not manly,” he grumbles back. “Cloud’s too cool for flowers.”

Cloud ruffles the boy’s hair. “One day you’ll learn that no one’s too cool for flowers, Camden. Thank you, Krista.”

Krista beams. “See, Camden! Cloud likes it!”

Before the two children can start an argument, Cloud interjects, “Where’s everyone else? It’s rare that there are only the two of you here.”

“Denzel took everyone else to go get food,” Krista says. “But he said you might come here today, so we’re—”

“‘Holding down the fort’,” Camden says, puffing his chest out slightly. “He told us to watch for you. A very important job, he said.”

“It is important,” Cloud says solemnly. “You two did a good job. But,” he says, setting Krista down, “I came here to do an important job, too. Is it all right if you let these guys play in the water for a while?”

The two children turn in unison to give the four Firsts equally critical looks, and the way the fully-grown men’s eyes all widen slightly in trepidation has Cloud smirking.

“ … I guess it’s okay,” Camden decides, looking a bit reluctant. “If Cloud says so…”

“Make it fast,” Krista adds.

“Sized up by two five-year-olds,” Genesis mutters, just quiet enough that the kids can’t hear. _“Imagine.”_

“Well, you heard them,” Cloud says, smirk growing. “Make it fast.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> brace yourselves, infodump is coming
> 
> also happy birthday cloud! <3

Denzel decides that today is not a particularly good day.

It starts when Tifa tells him that very morning that Cloud will be visiting, no forewarning whatsoever. Apparently _Cloud_ hadn't given her much warning either, and it makes Denzel wonder what kind of urgent business might have called Cloud away from his Very Important Job for Rufus, especially if he's bringing _friends._ Denzel hadn't even been aware that Cloud _has_ friends outside of AVALANCHE—acquaintances, yes, but no one close enough to bring home. So he wouldn’t be surprised if these “friends” are actually random people the WRO shoved onto Cloud for some reason.

Denzel may still respect the WRO for the work they do despite having changed his goals in life, but his feelings toward Rufus Shinra are much less certain, especially now that he's given Cloud a job that might take him away from home for potential _months._ Though Cloud's taken him along on the back of Fenrir for quite a few runs now, Denzel can't do any work for the delivery service on on his own yet—the old motorcycle they've been fixing together isn't ready, and he still needs to get his driver's license. But Rufus has paid Cloud off enough that even Tifa seems a little worried. She’d never say so, of course, but it’s evident in the way she stares off into space for minutes at a time, and each night she spends much too long wiping down the bar and cleaning the glasses.

Denzel's already made plans with the kids for the day, so he isn't able to stay at either Seventh Heaven or the church to wait for Cloud—instead, Tifa and Marlene will be waiting at home, and Barret will be out helping with clearing monsters, which have rather worryingly been showing up with increasing frequency in the areas of Edge closest to Midgar. Denzel has to ask Krista and Camden to keep an eye out for Cloud at the church, in case Cloud stops by there first. He might not with _friends_ in tow, but it’s a part of his usual routine when coming back from longer trips.

The second sign that the day is not going to turn out well is when he runs into Marlene as he’s taking a few of the younger kids into the WRO’s building to use the restroom. She’s waiting for Tifa, who’d apparently been called in to see Reeve for an urgent matter not long after Denzel had left in the morning. _Tifa’s_ been called in—not Barret or Cid or even Cloud, but Tifa, and that in itself is already deeply concerning. But she shows up looking completely unruffled and unharmed while they’re all still helping with food distribution, and even asks to go with them as they head back to the church, Krista and Camden’s portions in tow, mentioning how it’s been a while since she’s visited Aerith, and Denzel is left wondering about that, too.

Then Denzel’s day plummets from simply _bad_ to _worst fucking day of this decade_ when he steps into the church and sees _Sephiroth_ pinning Cloud to the floor, dripping wet as if he’s just risen undead from the depths of Aerith’s spring.

Denzel doesn't think, doesn't hesitate.

He charges.

-

Cloud doesn’t know what he’d been expecting—glowing green lights? disembodied voices? JENOVA screeching?—but anticlimactically, nothing happens when Sephiroth, the last of the four, rises out of the water, flicking his dripping bangs out of his face. He doesn’t even look vaguely dazed; in fact, none of them look affected at all.

Cloud doesn’t know if that’s a good sign or a bad sign. But Aerith _had_ said not to worry, so maybe—hopefully—it’s fine.

He’s so busy thinking that he doesn’t even notice that Genesis has said something gleeful and smacked Sephiroth hard on the back just as the man steps out of the pool, footing uneven, and then he’s lying on his back, staring up at Sephiroth’s face.

Sephiroth stares back, green eyes wide.

“Um,” Cloud says, shifting beneath his heavy weight after a few uncomfortable seconds pass, “could you maybe—”

_“Cloud!”_

Cloud’s eyes widen. He hadn’t expected Denzel to come back so soon— “Oh, shit—”

“Get off him!” Denzel charges with a cry, pulling the staff from his back.

Sephiroth quickly pushes himself off, letting Cloud stumble to his feet, but Denzel is already swinging, sending a flurry of quick blows at Sephiroth. They’re all easily deflected, but Cloud’s still pretty proud—that is, until Denzel, in a fit of frustration, sends a harsh kick at Sephiroth’s shins.

It connects. Cloud’s jaw drops.

Sephiroth doesn’t even flinch, but he looks utterly dumbstruck, and Denzel growls loudly and kicks out again—

_“Whoa,”_ Cloud says, grabbing the angry teen beneath the arms and tugging him out of kicking range, unable to hold back his laughter. Imagine, the great General Sephiroth, conquered by an angry sixteen-year-old gunning for his shins. “It’s okay, Denzel.”

_“What?”_ Denzel says, struggling against his grasp. “No, how could—that’s _Sephiroth,_ you— _Cloud—”_

“No, it’s okay, he isn’t the same—”

“He _isn’t the same?”_ Denzel struggles even harder. _“Tifa!”_

“Tifa?” Cloud freezes, grip falling slack, and Denzel wriggles away.

“Denzel!” Tifa rushes in, looking worried. “What—” Her gaze lands on Sephiroth, and her eyes narrow. “Get back,” she says lowly, stepping in front of Denzel as she tugs her gloves on, leather creaking. “Cloud, what—”

“Tifa, just—calm down and listen to me, okay?” Cloud says as soothingly as he can. “Remember that thing I wanted to tell you in person?”

“It was _this?”_ Tifa says incredulously. “I thought you just wanted to tell me that you—but—how is this even _possible?_ How did this happen?”

“The Planet,” Cloud says, “I think? Aerith said so, so—”

_“Aerith_ did?” Tifa looks more willing to listen, but her fists are still clenched tightly. “Cloud, why didn’t you tell me _sooner—”_

“Cloud,” a small voice says from behind. Everyone’s gaze snaps to the entrance of the church, where Marlene stands with all the other kids gathered around her, some clutching nervously at her pink skirts, others simply staring curiously. The same one from before, a seven-year-old named Gale, says, “Is that the man who hurts you in your dreams, Cloud?”

“I—” Cloud sets his shoulders and sighs, long and weary. “No. He isn’t—not anymore.”

“He _isn’t—”_ Tifa laughs harshly, then marches right up to Cloud and shakes him by the shoulders. “Cloud, wake up! That’s _Sephiroth._ And Marlene, I told you to keep the kids outside!”

“Tifa,” Cloud says, placing a hand over hers. “Just look at him. He’s different.”

Tifa glares hard at Sephiroth, who stares calmly back. There’s a hint of confusion buried deep in his eyes, but he does a fair job of hiding it, and Cloud doubts Tifa catches it.

“Cloud,” Tifa says slowly, “I _want_ to believe you, I really do—your eyes are normal, and the things you can sense—besides, you wouldn’t just let him control you again. I believe that much. But—some part of me can’t accept that he’s just—just—”

“He doesn’t remember anything past Nibelheim, Tifa,” Cloud says. “But JENOVA was there. I can’t… you know I can’t—”

Tifa sighs, sounding tired and sad. “Of course you can’t.”

“Tifa…”

“Cloud,” Zack says suddenly. “What did Tifa mean, _control you again?”_

Tifa frowns. “Cloud, did you not tell them?” Then she shakes her head and sighs. “Of course you didn’t tell them. It’s so private, no one could expect you to… but don’t you think at least _he_ should know what he’s done?”

“Tell us _what?”_ Genesis says.

Cloud glances at the kids still crowding at the doors, at Denzel and Marlene, who he’d never told much about his actual interactions with Sephiroth. He never talks much about Sephiroth in general. “Can we… talk about this somewhere else?”

Tifa looks at the kids too, then back at the four Firsts. She sets her jaw. "Yeah," she says, exhaling loudly through her nose. "Yeah, that's a good idea. But first—”

Quick as lightning, she darts forward and slams a fist into Sephiroth's face, once, twice, and he actually stumbles backwards, blinking disorientedly.

He clutches at his rapidly purpling eye. This time, his bewilderment is clearly visible. "What…"

"The first was for my dad and all the Nibelheimers," Tifa says, breathing heavily, but not from exertion. "The other was for your mommy issues. I'll reserve my judgment for everything else for later. Now." She turns on her heel, black skirt whirling out behind her. "Let's go."

-

"I'm sorry," Tifa says, much too regretfully as she flips over the CLOSED sign and gestures for them to take a seat at the bar. "We don't have any Restore materia we can use at the moment. You know how it is, with the Planet…"

Cloud gives her a look. They both know that they both have mastered Restores currently equipped, not to mention all his Master Materia upstairs in his room, but he's not about to say anything when she's like _this._ Instead, he just sighs and heads into the back to grab an ice pack from the fridge. Sephiroth heals quickly, but he doesn't quite deserve to suffer _that_ much.

When he comes back, ice pack in tow, Tifa's already served them all drinks—the shitty kind that she saves for customers who are especially assholish, the kind that lingers nastily on the tongue with all the slickness and flavor of motor oil. Vincent, though, who has followed them with his typical ghostly silence, simply gets his usual, a clear, amber-colored drink strong enough to go down with a slight burn.

Cloud resists the urge to roll his eyes. For someone who fights with her fists, Tifa can be very passive aggressive at times. Not about to protest, Cloud just wordlessly plops himself into the seat next to Sephiroth and gestures for him to lean in, raising the ice pack.

Sephiroth hesitates. "I can… do it myself—”

This time, Cloud really does roll his eyes. "Just relax. You're gonna need it for this."

As Cloud presses the ice pack up against Sephiroth's black eye, Genesis takes a sip of his drink and wrinkles his nose delicately. "Alcoholic drinks in the middle of the day? What _is_ this cheap swill, anyways?"

"It may be cheap, but it'll get you good and buzzed fast, enhancements or not," Tifa tells him as she grabs a clean-looking glass from behind the counter and begins wiping it with smooth, repetitive motions, skillfully hiding her agitation. "Like Cloud said, you're going to want to keep your stress levels as low as possible for this story."

“That doesn’t sound good,” Zack says, frowning worriedly.

Cloud grunts. “Mind control never is.”

Angeal frowns, too. “Mind control—”

“You know all SOLDIERs were injected with J-cells,” Cloud interrupts, gaze dropping to his free hand in his lap. “Women can take a small amount with no risk of mutating, but the moment they get more than that—well. And men—it’s always a huge gamble, but sometimes you get results like SOLDIER. It has to do with how JENOVA’s host was a female Cetra or something. But the regular SOLDIER serum was made with dead J-cells. Live J-cells guarantee stronger enhancements, but they’re also much more dangerous. They can cause uncontrolled mutation at an even higher rate than their dead counterparts. That’s why they used your mothers for the JENOVA Project—for the stability.”

“Good to know that the reason we never had any female SOLDIERs isn’t that ShinRa are a bunch of sexist bastards,” Zack says. “Or at least not _just_ because of that.”

The corner of Cloud’s mouth twitches up in amusement, but it drops quickly. “From what we managed to parse from ShinRa’s old lab notes—Angeal, your mother was injected with live J-cells while she was pregnant with you. Genesis, you were given Gillian’s cells while you were still a fetus. And Sephiroth—Lucrecia was also injected with live J-cells, but so were you as a fetus, and the direct injections continued through your childhood and into your service in SOLDIER…”

“We know all this already,” Genesis says. “Angeal and I were both informed of our origins by Hollander, and Vincent told Sephiroth of his—”

“JENOVA could control things with her live cells,” Cloud interrupts. “As JENOVA’s son… Sephiroth has or at least had that ability, too.”

Genesis starts. “So he could potentially control _us,_ too?”

“Your cells are dormant according to the WRO’s testing,” Cloud says, tilting his head thoughtfully. “And Aerith’s water should have made sure of that. So… probably not. Do any of you feel any kind of static buzzing clouding your thoughts? Itching behind your eyes? High-pitched noise in your ears? Any other strange inexplicable feelings?”

Angeal and Zack shake their heads, but Genesis looks thoughtful. “Once or twice, I believe—but nothing like you’ve described. It’s always felt more like… a tingling warmth?”

Sephiroth frowns as he nods. “There’s a static tingling whenever I am in proximity with you. It’s… started to happen intermittently around the others, as well. But it’s always strongest near you.”

“Hey, now that you describe it that way, I think I kinda feel it sometimes too,” Zack says.

When everyone turns to look at Angeal, though, he shifts in his seat. “I… might have felt something along those lines, maybe, but—I don’t know if that’s just me making things up after hearing what you’ve all said. But, Cloud—you must be familiar with these feelings yourself if you’re able to describe them so clearly.”

Cloud’s jaw clenches. “Yeah. Familiar.”

“Cloud,” Zack says quietly. “Hojo gave us both live J-cells, didn’t he?”

“He… gave up on you first,” Cloud murmurs. “The reports said that they wouldn’t take with someone who’d already gotten their enhancements.”

Zack looks anguished. “That’s why he started just ignoring me. No matter how much I bargained or even begged, he wouldn’t look at me twice after the first year.”

“ … Oh,” Cloud says, feeling both sick that Zack had been willing to bargain with Hojo for more time under his scalpel to spare Cloud and inordinately relieved that at least he'd been able to spare Zack _some_ suffering. “I don’t remember much from then, but… we found out later that Hojo had taken the survivors of the fire in Nibelheim and used Sephiroth’s DNA to make clones."

_"Clones?"_ Genesis says incredulously.

"Oi, you can't say anything, Gen, what with your _Genesis copies,"_ Zack says, actually looking a bit sour.

“Cloud,” Sephiroth says, looking troubled. “So you are… a _clone_ of me?”

“You don’t look much like Seph,” Zack jokes, trying to lighten the tense atmosphere. “Neither do I, either.”

“Hojo called them clones, but the treatments were supposed to turn them into mindless puppets driven to reunite with JENOVA… a process called _Reunion,”_ Cloud says bitterly. “I was too weak. A failure. I lost myself for a long time… I thought I was a First, you know. I replaced Zack in my memories. I couldn’t face reality, my failures, so I made up this whole grand story in my head to hide behind…”

“Cloud—”

Cloud waves Zack’s concern off. “I’m glad I didn’t end up like I was supposed to, though. I might not have been myself, but at least I wasn’t _completely_ mindless…” He trails off. “Well. Kind of. I was unconsciously following the pull of Reunion anyways, and then when Sephiroth showed up—well. I was too weak to resist. That’s why I can’t blame Sephiroth for the things he’s done under JENOVA’s control. I’ve… done some—”

“It wasn’t Cloud’s fault,” Tifa interjects suddenly, slamming the glass she’d been cleaning for the entire duration of the conversation down onto the bar. “His memories were all messed up, and Sephiroth took advantage of his confusion and self-doubt to break him down and manipulate him. How could he have resisted Sephiroth’s control when he was doubting his entire existence? And everyone else who’d gone through the same experiments as him were literally reduced to mumbling _zombies._ So don’t you dare call him weak.”

Cloud coughs. “Um, anyways. Tifa helped me screw my head back on straight, which helped a lot with that. So it wasn’t too bad—”

“It took another round of mako poisoning and two trips into the Lifestream,” Tifa says, glaring at Cloud. “Don’t downplay what happened.”

Cloud shifts uncomfortably in his seat, and he finally lets his hand holding the ice pack drop into his lap. “Tifa, I don’t want—”

_“No,_ Cloud,” Tifa says. “If you won’t tell him right, then _I_ will.” She leans over the bar and jabs a finger harshly into Sephiroth’s chest. “Now you listen here, you silver-haired asshole. I don’t care what you do or don’t remember, but you put this man through hell and back running half-assed all over the Planet to stop you from launching your world-dominating, Planet-destroying, mother-complex-inspired evil plans. You tore him down into pieces with your words alone and used him, _dehumanized_ him, and we can only be grateful he was strong enough to piece himself back together. He’s _died_ because of you, and you _enjoyed every minute of it._

“But by some miracle, he’s decided to give you a second chance, so don’t you dare throw it away by running off into the distance to hide forever under the guise of an absolutely idiotic guilt complex! We’ve just finished getting rid of those here. I told you because you deserve to know what happened, and if you _really_ feel bad about it, you’ll make it up to _Cloud,_ not by punishing yourself. That helps no one. You hear me, Sephiroth?”

The fading bruise over Sephiroth’s eye lightens to match the pale tone of his skin just as he lowers his gaze to his untouched drink. “ … Yes.”

-

Cloud peeks into the bar again from the back room, watching the four men huddle together and speak in low, indecipherable voices. Their backs are to him, so he can’t see their expressions, but their body language is tense. He can’t even begin to imagine what’s going through their minds—he hadn’t wanted them to find out quite _that_ much—

“Relax, Cloud,” Tifa says, laying a hand on his shoulder. “They’re just processing things. It takes time.”

“I guess,” Cloud says, but he can’t stop the fidgeting of his hands, and he hates it. It’s another nervous habit from a lifetime ago; he hasn’t done anything like this since he was sixteen.

“He deserves to know,” Tifa tells him. “He can’t move on until he knows what he has to move on _from,_ after all.”

Cloud sighs. “You’re right, as always. And at least you didn’t tell him what he actually _said_ back then.”

“That’s up to you. It’s not my right to tell him something as private as _that.”_

“I—”

“You don’t have to, of course. Do I think he might benefit from it? Probably, but in this case, what he doesn’t ever know won’t hurt him, either.”

“ … Thanks, Tifa.”

“No thanks needed,” Tifa says gently. “Now, are you going to go out there and tell them they need to wrap it up or not? It’s going to get dark in an hour or two, and Denzel and Marlene have been forced to stay out long enough. You guys need to get to the WRO soon, too—you’re all staying there, right?”

Cloud nods, saying wryly, “Rufus was kind enough to offer.”

“That man is up to something.”

“That something is recruitment,” Cloud says, “but it’s just for tonight, I think. I’ll ask Reno to take us back to Costa del Sol tomorrow.”

“If you’re sure. Make sure to swing by again before you leave, okay? The kids will be disappointed if you don’t. You’ve got the bag I packed for you, right? Then…” Tifa raps sharply on the doorframe, and all four Firsts jump in their seats. “All right, you lot. Time to go.”

-

The moment Cloud sees both Reeve and Rufus standing at the entrance to personally welcome them into the building, Cloud already knows that they’re not getting any rest anytime soon. Vincent seems to think so too—he’s been trailing them at a distance, undetectable but for the faint tingling in Cloud’s scalp that signifies his demons’ proximity, but he appears a few feet away from Zack, who jumps and curses up a storm.

“Your belongings have been moved from Reno’s helicopter to your lodgings already,” Rufus informs them. “But we need to speak with you all first.”

Zack laughs nervously. “That’s… not good, is it?”

“That remains to be seen,” Reeve says ominously, and Zack deflates.

“Dude, that’s even worse…”

Instead of escorting them to one of their offices, though, they take them down to the labs, and Cloud’s gut begins twisting nervously. The others all seem to share his unease, glancing around warily, Zack catching Angeal’s hand in his own, and Vincent edges closer until he’s hovering directly over Cloud’s shoulder.

“We’re sorry for this, we really are,” Reeve says apologetically, noting their growing anxiety. “But there’s something you all need to see.”

Cloud tenses. “Bad news?”

“Not… _bad,_ per se,” Reeve hedges. “Just… confusing.”

“Well _that’s_ reassuring,” Genesis mutters.

Rufus clears his throat and enters a pin into a keypad on the wall, and the door beside them slides open smoothly. “In here, if you will.”

The door shuts when they all file in, and Rufus turns a large screen on with a click. “I’d like you to all take a look at this.” He clicks a button on a tiny handheld controller, and the blank screen flickers to five images of cells, lined up side-by-side.

“These are white blood cells taken from the blood we drew from the four of you several days ago,” Reeve says. “The fifth cell is an image taken from some of Hojo’s lab notes. Now, we may say that SOLDIERs are injected with J-cells, but they’re actually injected with genetic information that transforms their _own_ cells into J-cells by inserting itself into the host’s DNA, which is why we’ve classifed JENOVA as a virus. In each of these images, the DNA sequence associated with a cell that has successfully integrated JENOVA’s genetic information— _live_ J-cells, if you will—has been stained purple.”

Rufus clicks the button again, and it switches to a side-by-side comparison of one of the cells from before, and a new one, still stained purple, but a chunk of the purple pattern is almost—

“It’s missing,” Zack says in realization. “That part on the left. It’s not purple in the new one.”

Reeve nods. “That cell is one taken from one of our employed SOLDIERs—with his consent, of course. That’s how a standard SOLDIER’s white blood cell looks—a dead J-cell. In this, the portion that tells the cell to create proteins based on JENOVA’s DNA is completely missing, hence the ‘missing’ purple section. In these cells, the new genetic information only increases the host’s ability to absorb and use mako as an enhancer, while in live J-cells, it is actively utilized in protein synthesis, which can lead to some rather… extreme results. Now, actually, if you look closely at your cells compared to the one from Hojo’s notes—Rufus, if you would—”

Rufus clicks back to the previous slide.

Reeve continues, “You’ll see a tiny break in the purple stain in all of your cells. That shows that the portion we were just talking about—it’s called a promoter—is actually _deactivated._ That’s why we said that the tests showed that your J-cells were dormant.”

“That’s all well and good,” Genesis says, “but why is this significant?”

“Well,” Reeve says, hesitating, “after you declined to participate in further testing…”

“We preserved the blood we’d already drawn for closer observation,” Rufus says. “We’d have no way of monitoring any potential future changes, so we resigned ourselves to simply scouring our existing samples for the slightest signs of irregularity. But imagine our surprise when _this_ happened.” He presses the button again, and the screen switches to a new side-by-side comparison, this time of only four cells, unstained.

“You didn’t put dye on them,” Zack says blankly. “So?”

“Oh!” Reeve says. “No, it’s not that we didn’t dye them—this is what they looked like after we tried, in fact, just yesterday. No purple. Not a bit.”

Angeal’s brow furrows. “Then what…?”

The next slide shows the same cells, this time with a green stain. “After a lot of analysis and comparison, as far as we’re aware, this is the new sequence that replaced your old,” Reeve said. “There are slight variations among each of you, but looking at cells from SOLDIERs and unenhanced people show that this particular sequence doesn’t show up in anyone else at all. We even—ah…”

“We asked your friend Miss Lockhart to come in this morning, because we wanted to ensure that it wasn’t just something that happened to people who’d been in the Lifestream for an extended period of time,” Rufus says. “But her cells are perfectly normal, if a bit more mako-infused than average—”

“You _what?”_ Cloud’s eyes narrow furiously. “How did you even get her to come in?”

“We… told her that there were some irregularities in some ex-SOLDIERs’ DNA, and we wanted to check and see if it was Lifestream-inspired,” Reeve says. “She wasn’t opposed to helping once she heard that, and it—”

“Technically wasn’t a lie,” Genesis says, looking a bit impressed. “You’ve more guts than I’d originally accredited you, Tuesti.”

“Tifa’s a big girl, Cloud, she can make her own decisions,” Rufus says.

“She can,” Cloud agrees. “Which is why you don’t have a broken jaw right now. It doesn’t mean I can’t be unhappy with it, though.”

“That’s fair, I suppose,” Rufus says. “Regardless, now that you know all this, we have one last thing to ask of you, Cloud.”

Cloud blinks. “Me?”

Rufus turns to address the four Firsts. “You are all changing, that much is certain. How and why and if it’s for the better or if it’s for the worse, we don’t know, and there’s no way for us to find out as of now. But there _is_ one question that we’ve all been asking, and it’s something that can be answered now. Cloud.”

“What,” Cloud says flatly, not in the mood for another frilly speech.

“We’d like to take a sample of your blood.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m not a biologist don’t @ me please and thank
> 
> EDIT: check out this amazing art of [denzel and marlene](https://skadren.tumblr.com/post/186926561444/finaltimeattack-i-got-to-draw-denzel-and-marlene) by the lovely and talented [jun](https://finaltimeattack.tumblr.com/)! they're so precious i'm crying :')
> 
> ~~do i mean the art? the artist? _both_~~


	11. Chapter 11

Zack watches as a myriad of expressions flash across Cloud’s face, almost too fast to read—shock, anger, fear—before it’s wiped blank, and he’s silent for a long, stilted moment.

Reeve seems to think Cloud’s reaction is bad news, because he hastens to add, “Only a single vial, and we’d dispose of it right away. You know we wouldn’t ask unless there truly was no other way, and this is only for the sake of comparison. If your bloodwork shows a similar or a more advanced version of these results, then I’m sure we’d all feel at least marginally more at ease—”

“Unless you have something to be uneasy about?” Rufus interrupts, watching Cloud closely. “Are you afraid of seeing the results, Cloud? Have there been strange incidents happening to _you_ instead of the others?”

Cloud’s mouth twists harshly. “That’s none of your business. But I’ll—I’ll let you do it. Just this once.”

“Cloud,” Vincent suddenly says from behind them all, and Zack starts. He’d nearly forgotten about the tall, silent man’s presence.

“It’s okay,” Cloud says, but the line of his shoulders is tense. It’s clearly _not_ okay, and Zack knows why—Cloud’s screaming during their time spent in Hojo’s care isn’t leaving Zack’s dreams anytime soon—

Vincent’s eyes narrow. “I will stay,” he announces. “The rest of you will leave.”

“Hey,” Zack says, “I want to stay, too. Maybe it’ll… maybe it’ll help?”

“You were in the labs with Cloud, were you not?” Vincent says. “You should leave.”

When Zack makes to object again, Cloud shakes his head, refusing to meet Zack’s eyes. “Vincent’s right. Thanks, but having you around might bring up… some bad memories.”

Zack sighs, shoulders slumping as he gives in. “Fine.”

-

“So, are you going to ask?” Genesis hisses at Sephiroth, who stands staring blankly at the shut door.

When Sephiroth doesn’t respond, Angeal says for him, “Ask what, Gen?”

“For a DNA test,” Genesis says, jerking his chin in a gesture at the door. “With _him.”_

Sephiroth blinks, then frowns. “Genesis—”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. A man who closely resembles you—much more than that fool _Hojo,_ at least—who had romantic relations with your birth mother not long before she became pregnant with you—”

“He said he loved her, yes, but otherwise did not elaborate as to what kind of relations those were exactly,” Sephiroth says. “I cannot jump to conclusions based on just that.”

“But aren’t you at least curious?” Genesis presses.

Sephiroth shakes his head. He’ll admit that after hearing Vincent’s story, a part of him hadn’t been able to help but wonder—what if Vincent really _had_ succeeded? Would Sephiroth have grown up with a family? He would have been different, certainly. Perhaps less cold. Less hardened. Less of a trained killer chained by his masters, a _weapon—_

But that’s in the past. Sephiroth is who he is now, and regrets will change nothing.

And perhaps, a part of him is wary because of this. He wouldn’t know what to do with a different blood-related father, not when it’s been _Hojo_ for the longest time. Simply the concept of his _father_ inspires… an unpleasant sensation in his gut. Just another item on the long list of things Hojo has tainted. If Vincent really were confirmed—but no.

Sephiroth has never been good with dealing with unresolved feelings. Perhaps it’s better to stay here, in this nebulous maybe-related-maybe-not area. Safer.

But he respects and appreciates Vincent for what he’s done for him—the man had tried to protect him all those years ago, and though he hadn’t succeeded, the fact that he’d cared enough to try, even by proxy of Sephiroth’s mother, is unexpectedly… humanizing. 

He wouldn’t be opposed to considering Vincent as family. Maybe… maybe that’s enough.

The door makes a hissing noise as it slides open, then shut, snapping Sephiroth out of his thoughts. “A DNA test will not work,” Vincent says as he steps into the hall. “We are both too genetically modified for any decisive results.”

Sephiroth blinks. “You heard—?”

“My hearing is as good as any of yours.”

“But _do_ you know?” Genesis leans forward, looking intrigued. “You must have at least _some_ idea, right?”

Vincent shakes his head. “Some things are better left unknown.”

Zack looks confused. “Do you really not wanna know? It’s kind of important, isn’t it, knowing if someone’s your kid or not—”

“And if Sephiroth were, am I to live with the reality that I left my son to suffer the hands of a madman?” Vincent replies calmly. “And if he weren’t, am I to treat him any differently? Sephiroth is Lucrecia’s son. That is enough.”

The others look a bit shocked by his words, but Sephiroth nods, a silent understanding passing between the two of them.

“Where’s Cloud, by the way?” Zack asks, craning his neck as if trying to see if Cloud is hiding behind Vincent’s cloak.

“Still inside,” Vincent says, frowning. “He urged me to come out and speak to you after overhearing your conversation.”

Zack jerks. “All by himself—!”

Just as he makes to go back inside, though, the door slides open again, and out steps Cloud, looking for all the world completely unperturbed—unperturbed, that is, but for the near-imperceptible trembling of his hands.

“Cloud.” Vincent appears in front of him like a very concerned shadow, but Cloud just shakes his head. After a pause, Vincent steps away, fading into the background like always.

“They said the results will be out by tomorrow morning,” Cloud says, voice tight as he starts making his way toward the elevators. “I’ll—show you our rooms.”

“Cloud,” Zack says. “Are you—”

“We have three rooms. Two people each. It doesn’t matter who stays with who.”

_“Cloud,”_ Zack repeats. “Slow down, we’re not in any hurry. I’ll stay in a room with you, okay?”

“That’s fine,” Cloud says, not looking back.

Zack gives them all a worried look, then hurries to follow. “Wait, Cloud! Wait—!”

-

_Blink._

Metal-bright walls. Sterile white surfaces. A hard, cold examination table. The distant, hollow groan of mako channeled through pipes. Pain, echoing the noise, resonating through every limb of his body.

_Blink._

Whitewashed walls, soft and faintly yellowed. The soft spread of a bed and a hand-knitted patchwork quilt beneath his hands. The phantom prick of a needle in his arm.

Zack’s voice in the background, faint and watery, fading in and out with static.

“—okay, Cloud? You’re acting really out of it. Maybe we should—”

_Blink._

_“—break out. You hear me, Cloud? Let’s get out of here—”_

_Blink._

“—even listening to me? Cloud? C’mon, buddy, just give me a sign, any sign—”

_Blink._

_“—feeding time. That’s our chance. Cloud, please, you don’t have to do much, just blink yes or no—”_

_Blink._

Cloud’s vision switches from his memories to Zack’s face, blurry at first, then slowly coming into focus, his indigo eyes wide and terrified.

_Like changing the channel on a staticky television,_ Cloud thinks with faint, morbid humor.

“ … I’m fine,” he answers belatedly. “Sorry.”

_“Cloud,”_ Zack says, half-choking, half-sobbing as he sags in relief. “Don’t—don’t _do_ that. Please, I thought I’d lost you again, I just—I _can’t—”_

Cloud‘s perception of reality is still a bit— _wobbly—_ but he reaches up in a clumsy effort to reassure, to comfort.

Zack sweeps him up, burying his face in his hair. “You said you were fine, but I _knew_ something was wrong the moment you stepped out of that door. You shouldn’t have let them, Cloud. Not if it makes you like this.”

Cloud shakes his head. “If it matches… maybe they’ll let you guys off the hook.”

Zack pulls back, looking indignant. “That’s not worth it, Cloud! We’re perfectly happy staying with you. We’re not—we’re not _trapped_ or in _jail_ or anything, and that’s only thanks to you.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Cloud says. “Everyone’s afraid of history repeating itself. I can’t blame them—I am too. But if the WRO has any more reason to believe that one of you guys might… There’s no telling what they might do. More testing in the labs would be the least of it. A self-fulfilling prophecy—if I can do anything to keep that from happening, then I will.”

“But—if it makes you like _this—”_

“That’s not important. This’ll pass. World destruction won’t.”

“Cloud, that’s not fair to you.”

“Isn’t it?”

Zack frowns deeply. “Cloud—”

“I’m going to sleep,” Cloud says blandly as he kicks off his boots.

“But you haven’t even—”

“Good night.”

-

The next morning, Reeve’s somber expression as they step into his office has Cloud’s heart sinking into his gut. Bad news.

However, Reeve hastens to reassure him, “It’s not _bad_ news. Really.”

“That’s what you said last time,” someone grumbles half-heartedly behind him. Cloud thinks it might be Zack.

“We really just don’t know what to make of it, that’s all,” Reeve says. “It’s… interesting.”

In Cloud’s humble experience, _interesting_ never turns out well. But what does he know—his opinions are usually disregarded for a reason.

“Well, let’s start with the good news first,” Reeve says, shuffling through his paperwork in an attempt to look official, ignoring a muttered comment _I knew there was bad news somewhere,_ again from behind. “You don’t seem to have J-cells anymore either.”

“And…?” Cloud prompts.

“Well.” Reeve pauses. “The first few tests we did showed otherwise, actually. The stains showed up practically textbook, which is… unusual, to say the least, given your particular—history. But when we double-checked a few hours later, segments of the J-cell sequence were missing, replaced with—you might have guessed—the new pattern found in the others. We had the labs retest every hour, and sure enough, it disappeared at a fascinatingly steady rate. By morning, any trace of JENOVA was completely gone.”

“Oh,” Cloud says. He’s not sure what else he _can_ say, other than that. And maybe _you had people working all_ night _on this? Poor bastards._

“But what does that _mean?”_ Genesis says impatiently, and… well, that works too, Cloud thinks ruefully.

“We’re not sure ourselves,” Reeve says, rubbing the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “But we’re assuming whatever caused the change in the others’ cells was also what happened here. Perhaps some sort of delayed-response hormone trigger? But we can’t even compare rates, since we weren’t aware of the change until it was too late… And why an entire day later? One would expect that it would occur much earlier in Cloud if we’re considering resurrection to be the trigger…” He trails off into thoughtful mumbling.

Zack gives Cloud a worried look, most likely reminded of the way Hojo had rambled on while performing experiments on his test subjects, but Cloud just shrugs. “He gets like this sometimes.” Usually about engineering rather than biology, so Cloud has to admit it’s more discomforting than he’d like, but it’s _Reeve._ Despite their rough start, they’ve been through more than a few difficult times together. It’d be an insult to to even _think_ that he might sound similar to Hojo—

Zack blinks, looking surprised, then says, “No, not—I was… Tifa mentioned you’d _died,_ but I—we—we didn’t really think that you’d really—”

“So you _did_ die fighting Sephiroth, then,” Genesis says, looking uncharacteristically solemn.

“Not… exactly?” Cloud hedges.

“That’s not a no,” Angeal says, also frowning.

Cloud shrugs, stalling for time as he thinks hard on what to say. “I… You all saw the bullet scar. It wasn’t from _Sephiroth,_ that’s for sure.”

Sephiroth’s eyes narrow dangerously. _“Who.”_

Reeve, who until now has seemed content with allowing Cloud to handle explaining, looks surprised at this. “Cloud, you haven’t told them about the Remnants yet?”

“Um,” Cloud says, a bit helplessly. “No? It didn’t seem… important.”

Zack straightens. “Dude, that means it’s _really important.”_

More of Cloud’s opinions are being disregarded than usual today, it seems. Feeling oddly pressured to justify his decision, he adds, “I guess I didn’t really know how to explain it.”

“Cloud, you’d be the one who understood them the most, I think,” Reeve says.

“Their feelings, maybe,” Cloud says quietly. “But not… everything else.”

“Just try,” Angeal suggests. “I’m sure you’ll be able to explain more than you think.”

Cloud takes another moment to think, then sighs, giving in. “The Remnants were… how did you describe it, Vincent? Like larvae?”

Everyone starts as Vincent melts out of one of the shadowed corners of the room to say, “Yes. Sephiroth’s larvae.”

“Holy shit, dude, I didn’t even notice you were there,” Zack says. Then he makes a face. “That’s gross. Seph was a bug? And had kids?”

Cloud chokes. “What—no, he was just. _Damn.”_ He runs a hand agitatedly through his hair. “After we, uh, killed him for the second time, he still refused to stay dead. He wouldn’t become one with the Lifestream. The Remnants were… these three men who were, I don’t know, manifestations of that desire?”

Reeve nods. “To this day we aren’t sure where exactly they came from—the Turks found them in the Northern Crater, but they could be anything from solidified corrupt Lifestream given autonomy to leftover Sephiroth clones to beings created from Sephiroth’s remains…”

“Memories,” Cloud says. At Reeve’s surprised look, he adds, “I don’t know the hows or whys or anything, I just—they were his memories.”

At that, the Firsts look troubled. “Memories…?” Genesis murmurs thoughtfully.

“Yeah. But they were just puppets. Clueless. Driven only by their desperate desire for love from their _mother._ Just like…” Cloud shakes his head, cutting himself off. “Anyways. They spent a while looking for JENOVA—or what was left of her, at least. And when they found her, their leader, Kadaj—he… triggered a Reunion, and took her remaining cells inside of him. Sephiroth possessed him. And like—like a larva, he transformed.”

Sephiroth’s eyes widen. “He _transformed_ into me?”

“Pointy sword and everything,” Cloud says dryly. “We fought. After he grew too tired, he changed back, and… the rain fell. Kadaj found peace. Returned to the Lifestream.” Cloud pauses for a moment, feeling a bit wistful, then shakes himself. “The other two, Loz and Yazoo… caught me by surprise from behind. They both died in the resulting explosion. But as for me…”

Zack’s eyes are wide. “But as for you—?”

“I don’t have a place there. You said so yourself.” Cloud’s mouth can’t help but twist a tad bitterly. He knows Zack had only said it with the kindest of intent in mind, but the reminder that he’s too inhuman, too _tainted_ to truly belong in the Lifestream, to find rest when some days it’s the only thing he wants when he wakes up in the morning, always makes some hidden part of him ache. He still remembers Yazoo’s last words— _we’ll go together, brother._ The Remnants had been lonely and afraid, even at the end. Maybe even especially so at the end. They’d wanted someone to go with them, and just as Cloud had resolved to do that, made peace with his impending death with a hole through his chest, numb and burning all at once—

He tries not to wonder about what might have happened if he’d stayed in the Lifestream like he should have, if all of JENOVA’s ties to Gaia had died that day like they were supposed to. After all, he has things worth living for, now—so many good things he never would have dreamed of having in his life. But in times like this, when everything seems to be going awry, it seems all too easy to slip back into those kinds of thoughts.

Suddenly realizing that the room has fallen into a stiff and heavy silence, Cloud coughs, snapping himself out of his funk. “Anyways. I woke up in the church. I’d really hoped that maybe Sephiroth had finally found peace… but I guess that wasn’t the case.”

The others are all silent again for another long moment, before Angeal asks, “Cloud, Kadaj’s transformation—how did it… Do you remember how it worked?”

Cloud blinks. “Sort of? It was triggered by the J-cells he’d absorbed, plus…” He grimaces. “Plus memories of Sephiroth. In the Lifestream, you’re sort of… swept away? It’s easy to lose sight of yourself, to forget who you are. That’s what the Remnants were for—to go around figuring out what Sephiroth was like in life. Once they’d found enough information, it was easy for Sephiroth to find himself again and be able to influence the living plane.”

Angeal looks troubled. “So it was our memories… and your J-cells…”

That sounds fairly ominous. “What… do you mean?” Cloud asks.

“You truly don’t remember anything of that night, do you?” Genesis says. “Cloud, a few nights ago, you… somehow, you changed into a… past version of yourself. All of us were quite understandably shocked—”

Cloud starts. “I— _what?”_

“Don’t worry!” Zack hastens to reassure. “It was just sixteen-year-old you, and it was definitely, you know, _you,_ not some dead creep from the Lifestream. You didn’t do anything bad, either—in fact, you helped snap Seph out of his funk.”

Cloud brings his hand up to his mouth, suddenly feeling sick. First the sword-summoning, now _this—_

“We’re sorry, Cloud,” Angeal says. “Going by what you said, it was probably us—our memories of all those years ago that triggered it.”

Cloud shakes his head. “No, that can’t—that can’t just be it, otherwise Tifa—back then, I would have—Tifa…” He trails off, a sudden dread pooling in his gut as he remembers Sephiroth’s words from an age ago.

_The ability to change one's looks, voice, and words is the power of JENOVA. Inside of you, JENOVA has merged with Tifa's memories, creating you._

_(A puppet made up of vibrant JENOVA cells, her knowledge, and the power of Mako… That is your reality.)_

In the end it hadn’t been Tifa’s memories he’d stolen, but _Zack’s._ If this is happening again —and _worse_ this time, because he’d never actually changed form, back then—

(And thank the gods for that; if he’d shown up in Aerith’s church wearing not only Zack’s movements and Zack’s speech but also Zack’s _face—)_

“Cloud?” Zack asks, wary. “Are you… okay?”

Cloud firms his expression, carefully setting it back to neutral. “I’m fine. Reeve, is that everything you wanted to tell us?”

Reeve looks a bit apprehensive, but says, “For now, we’re placing anything that actively replaces JENOVA’s DNA as a tentative positive. We’ll keep running comparisons—we’ve moved on to animal and monster DNA, as we’ve heard that at least three of you manifested wings, and JENOVA-based mutations tend to be animalistic in nature anyways—but it could take anywhere from a few months to a few years, considering the vast amounts of data we need to process…” He shakes his head.

“Anyways. That’s it for this. In other news… I know this might not be welcome after everything that’s happened lately, but we’d like to request your aid in a few days investigating what happened to the sunken Gelnika. Whatever’s driven all those monsters onto land, it can’t be good… If both you and Vincent could come, that would be optimal—you know how it gets down there. I’ll see if I can get Rufus to spare any Turks to look after the Firsts, but most of them will probably also be coming along…”

Cloud glances over at Vincent, who nods. He turns back to Reeve. “It’s fine. They can come too.”

“If you’re sure,” Reeve says. “That’s about it for today. I’ll call you if there’s anything else that comes up.”

Not in the mood to discuss anything further, Cloud says, “Then we’ll be going.”

“Goodbye, then. And for what it’s worth…” Reeve sighs. “We’re sorry, Cloud.”

-

No one questions where Cloud leads them until he takes a turn that clearly isn’t leading back to the central area of Edge, where Seventh Heaven is.

“Uh… where are we going, Cloud?” Zack asks, still looking wary as they pass through a few darkened alleyways tucked between several precariously-leaning buildings. “Didn’t Tifa say to visit Seventh Heaven before we left?”

“Checking on the kids,” Cloud says. “Reno’ll pick us up from Seventh Heaven later.”

Zack frowns, confused. “But… the church is—”

“You didn’t think they lived in the church, did you?” Cloud says. “They’ve got a communal house. Of sorts.”

Sometimes, when the thoughts in Cloud’s head get too loud, he goes to the church. But over the past few years, the times when he truly needs to get away for fear of hurting others have been decreasing, and he’s started visiting the kids instead, who, despite growing up in such trying, unstable times, never seem to lose their youthful innocence and straightforward optimism, and it’s watching them laugh and play that reminds Cloud to not overthink, to enjoy what he has here and now, to take part in what he’d fought so hard to protect. It’s exactly what Cloud needs now, when there are too many confusing thoughts swirling around in his head, and he’s beginning to fear himself and his abilities in a way he hasn’t in a while, not since the Geostigma crisis.

Though most of the kids still favor spending their days in the church, it’s too unprotected from the elements for anyone to actually _live_ there safely, and Cloud had gotten them a house in his name as soon as he’d been able. It’s further away from the hustle and bustle of Edge’s main square than most residential areas, and they’ve managed to start a small garden of their own in the extra space around it, flowers and all.

The moment Zack spots it, he blinks, then looks nostalgic and a tinge sad. “It looks like Aerith’s house.”

“ … It does,” Cloud realizes. It’d been completely unintentional, but—

“Cloud’s here!” someone calls from inside the house, and the front door bursts open in a storm of tiny feet.

“Cloud!” a chorus of voices call, and Cloud finds himself accosted by at least five small bodies, one for each arm and leg and an additional pair of arms clinging to his waist. Suddenly, he’s grateful that all the older kids are out doing work for the WRO.

“Cloud.” A hand tugs at the loose end of Cloud’s shirt, and he looks down in askance. Gale smiles shyly and holds up a flower crown. “I made this for you.”

“Oh,” Cloud says, surprised and fond all at once, and he shoos the others away as he crouches so they can put it on. “Thank you. It’s very pretty.”

Gale’s smile widens, then they turn and look at the other men. Zack’s already found himself the center of attention as he holds out his arms in a flexed position, more and more kids piling on in an attempt to get him to drop them. Angeal looks on with a fond smile on his lips, and Genesis has placed himself ever-so-slightly removed from the commotion, but still watches out of the corner of his eye. But Sephiroth stares off into the distance, looking pale and troubled, and Cloud suddenly realizes that the man has been oddly quiet—even more so than usual—for the past day.

“Those are the men from before,” Gale says quietly. “You’re worried because of them.”

Cloud blinks. “Did you… make this for me because you knew I was worried?”

Gale nods and straightens proudly. “It’s like you always tell us,” they say solemnly. “The flowers watch over us and keep us all safe. So there’s no need to worry, right?”

Cloud swallows hard, throat suddenly feeling a bit tight. He doesn’t know what he ever did to deserve this kind of love and care from these kids, but— “Thank you,” he says, more wobbly than he’d like. “I… it means a lot.”

“ … The man with the pretty silver hair,” Gale says suddenly. “He looks sad. And lonely.”

Cloud takes another moment to look at Sephiroth, then sighs. “He is.” He chews his lip, thinking. “Gale,” he says. “I love your flower crown. I really do. But I think he might need it more than I do.”

Gale nods hesitantly. “Maybe.”

Cloud reaches up and gently tugs the flower crown off from where it clings to the spikes of his hair, handing it back. “Why don’t you go over and give it to him. I think he’d appreciate it.”

Gale looks thoughtful, then brightens. “I know! Wait here, Cloud.” They dart off towards Sephiroth, flower crown in hand, and tugs at the man’s sleeve much as they had Cloud’s earlier.

Sephiroth looks down sharply.

Gale gives him a wobbly smile—they’ve always been shy, and Cloud’s honestly very proud that they’d even agreed to approach Sephiroth at all—and says something, and Sephiroth looks stunned.

He throws Cloud an uncertain glance, but at Cloud’s encouraging nod in response, he crouches down slowly, bowing his head so Gale can place the crown on top. He stands quickly, still looking confused, but he reaches up with something almost like wonder before his fingers flinch away, as if afraid of touching. Destroying.

To Cloud’s surprise, Gale doesn’t leave it at that. They grasp Sephiroth’s hand and tug him towards the garden, where they disappear among the flowers. He’s quickly distracted by some of the other orphans, then by checking up on things inside the house, and the pair doesn’t return until half an hour later, hand in hand, flower crown still perched on Sephiroth’s head. His other hand seems to be holding something behind his back.

“Cloud!” Gale says, beaming brightly, unusual for the calm, reserved seven-year-old. “Seph has something for you.”

Cloud blinks. “For me?”

Sephiroth frowns, but it’s not his usual angry or stern furrow of brows. Instead, it seems almost—embarrassed? “I… perhaps this was a bad idea, after all. Disregard what they said, Cloud—”

“No,” Gale insists. “You have to give it to him. You _promised.”_

Cloud raises his brows at Sephiroth. For kids Gale’s age, breaking a promise is tantamount to slaughtering their hopes and dreams. And Cloud is _fairly_ certain that Sephiroth isn’t into that occupation anymore—

Sephiroth’s frown deepens, and he’s definitely starting to look embarrassed. “Gale… taught me how to make flower crowns.”

“In thirty minutes?” Cloud says. “Color me impressed.”

“I…” Sephiroth finally holds out what he’d been hiding before. A flower crown. Crooked and tattered and clearly made by unskilled hands, but there’s still something beautiful in the way it holds together despite its bruises. “This is for you.”

Cloud doesn’t know what to say. “I… _what?”_

“In thanks,” Sephiroth adds hurriedly. “The other one was yours originally, was it not?”

Cloud’s mouth opens, then closes, then opens again. “I—” He closes it again.

Sephiroth frowns, and this one is more upset than embarrassed. “I… suppose I should have known you wouldn’t want it—”

“No!” Cloud says hurriedly. “I—I love it, I just—for _me?”_

Sephiroth studies him, and his frown softens into something else. “Yes,” he says. “For you.” He places it on Cloud’s head with little fanfare, then nods awkwardly and walks away. Gale gives Cloud a quick hug and scurries after.

For a long while, Cloud can’t do anything but reach up and touch the soft petals settled into his hair, still surprised, but slowly, the surprise fades to something warm and content.

He wears the crown for the rest of the day.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y’all went wild over the flowers last chapter so here, have more flowers n sap

On their way back to Seventh Heaven, Cloud pauses. Something feels… off. He glances back at the group of men trailing behind him. “ … Where’s Sephiroth?”

Angeal pauses, surprised. “He was just behind me a few minutes ago —”

Something in Cloud’s chest twists nervously, and he jerks back around, scanning quickly for a glimpse of silver hair. If something in the city has triggered Sephiroth’s memories—

But no. Cloud takes a moment to sort out the distinct static call that marks  _ Sephiroth _ from the faint-but-growing presences of the other three Firsts next to him, then casts a brief glance over at Vincent, who has stepped out of the shadows to hover near their group. Vincent nods, and Cloud nods back, then pushes past his own anxiety to follow the pull to find the missing man just an alley away in the middle of the city square, staring up at the rebuilt statue commemorating Meteorfall, its bright metal edges gleaming in the sunlight.

Inexplicably, Cloud feels guilty for jumping to conclusions. But also, Sephiroth staying out in the open for too long like this is dangerous , being far too recognizable as he is, so Cloud catches his attention, saying,  “Sephiroth?”

Sephiroth takes just a moment too long to respond. “ … Cloud.”

“Is everything okay?” Cloud says warily.

“I am fine.” Sephiroth shuts his eyes, then exhales shakily. “No… I should —Cloud, I am… not fine.”

Cloud ponders this. Sephiroth shouldn’t be staying out in the open for too long, no, but if he’s in a mood like this, Cloud probably shouldn’t bring it up. “Uh, do you… maybe want to — ”

“This plaque says that this statue was rebuilt after the destruction wrought upon the city by Bahamut SIN,” Sephiroth interrupts. “Bahamut SIN, summoned by Kadaj. One of my Remnants.”

“Yes?” Where is he going with this?

Sephiroth sighs, chin dropping slightly. “Another sin to add to my list.”

Cloud does a double-take at that line, a mirror of Vincent’s old laments. Ironic, considering what they’d been discussing mere hours before. “A—another  _ what?” _

“They were following orders to aid in my resurrection,” Sephiroth says, chin dropping even further. “As such, I should take responsibility for their actions.”

Cloud pushes aside Sephiroth’s interesting choice of wording in favor of correcting, “They were following JENOVA’s orders, not yours. Kadaj didn’t even—well… they were all their own people. They weren’t you. But they weren’t lesser than you, either.”

“I don’t know if that’s better,” Sephiroth says, gaze distant. “My thoughts have not been…  _ mine, _ lately. When you mentioned that someone had nearly —no,  _ had _ succeeded at killing you, I was furious. But not for the reason you’d expect. No, this inexplicable part of me was furious— _ seething— _ that someone other than I had harmed you.” Suddenly, his eyes snap to Cloud’s, something dark and looming flashing to the surface. “Only  _ I _ am allowed to harm you like that. No one else is near worthy.” Then he deflates. “Or so my mind automatically screamed at me. I… Cloud, I…”

Cloud looks at him carefully, taking in the slant of his eyebrows, the downturn of his mouth, the crease of his brow, and realizes—

Sephiroth is afraid. Afraid of afraid of what he used to be, what he’s become, afraid of what he  _ could _ be.

Cloud, so long used to scanning Sephiroth’s face for the barest hint of anger or frustration past his constant veneer of smug insanity, to watching the minutest shift of his eyes to predict his deadly intent in battle, barely manages to catch the staggeringly human emotion, as foreign as it is on the man’s face. But his prejudice had almost led to him missing it entirely, and for some reason, the idea of that is… unacceptable.

So Cloud straightens his spine and grabs Sephiroth’s hand. “Come with me.”

Sephiroth follows easily, but glances behind them, back towards where Seventh Heaven is located. “What about the others?”

Cloud pauses, then pulls out his PHS and sends Tifa a quick text. Communication taken care of, he tugs Sephiroth along faster. “We’d better hurry, then.”

Sephiroth looks bewildered as Cloud drags him through twisting side alleys and back streets, carefully avoiding the busiest parts of Edge. He only looks even more so when they halt in front of Aerith’s church.

“What are we doing here?” he asks.

Cloud smiles. “You’ll see.”

As always, the kids inside are thrilled to see Cloud, but he gently shoos them away, saying, “Sorry I can’t play with you right now, but I’m here to teach Sephiroth about the flowers. Maybe some other day, okay?”

The flowers here hold quite a bit of meaning for them, so they agree, if a tad reluctantly. Cloud’s spent ages playing pretend games where Aerith’s flowers have magical powers and made up a dozen different stories where they ward away monsters, darkness, and other assorted scary things. Though calling them “pretend games” and “stories” is doing Aerith’s flowers a severe disservice —Cloud’s long had his doubts about them being any normal old flowers—

After the children scatter back to their own devices, Cloud finds a nice spot in the patch of flowers and settles down, patting the spot in front of him. “Sit here.”

Still baffled, Sephiroth sits down regardless, though he keeps sneaking Cloud glances over his shoulder.

“Hold still,” Cloud scolds even as he begins carding his fingers through Sephiroth’s hair. “I can’t braid it if you’re moving around like that.”

“Braid—?”

“Shhh,” Cloud shushes, and goes back to work. He’s a bit clumsy at first—none of the kids have hair nearly as long or as thick as Sephiroth’s—but he figures it out quickly, twining the long, smooth strands through his fingers as he splits it into three sections. He gently breaks a flower off by the stem, then twists it into Sephiroth’s hair, repeating the actions every so often as he braids.

Eventually, the braid becomes long enough for Sephiroth to turn to look over his shoulder and watch Cloud work, hands moving smoothly over each other in swift, practiced motions.

“You do this often,” he observes.

“Yeah,” Cloud says. “The kids like it when I do their hair.”

“And the flowers?”

“My ma taught me a long time ago that flowers are a symbol of protection and hope,” Cloud says. “They don’t grow easily in Nibelheim, but the few that do are real sturdy. These are Aerith’s flowers. You may not believe it, but… they’re special. Each one”—Cloud adds another flower, twisting its stem into Sephiroth’s hair—“will remind you that you’re  _ you, _ not JENOVA’s puppet.”

Sephiroth cocks his head, looking vaguely disbelieving.

Cloud tugs sternly at the braid as he ties the end off. “Stop that. These really will protect you from JENOVA’s influence. And so will this,” he adds, lightly touching the flower crown still perched on Sephiroth’s head. “You think I don’t speak from experience?”

“ … You do?” Sephiroth says, a sort of fragile hope blooming in his eyes. “It really works?”

Cloud gently pats the flower crown again. “It does if you believe. Aerith believes.  _ I _ believe. So you’ll be fine, okay?”

-

“Ready to go?” Tifa asks, leaning against the entrance to Seventh Heaven and watching the two of them guiltily trek towards the bar. She raises a brow at the sight of the bedraggled flower crown perched crookedly on Cloud’s hair, then the excessive amount of flowers in Sephiroth’s, but just says, “The others have been waiting.”

Cloud inclines his head. “Sorry.”

Tifa pushes herself up straight, crossing her arms. “Marlene and Denzel are waiting inside too. They want to say goodbye before you leave.”

“I’ll do that,” Cloud says. “I —”

“Shelke called earlier,” Tifa continues. “She couldn’t chat for very long, so you missed her, but she wanted to say good luck. And that if you have any questions on… facts—well, public news, at least—from the past, to ask her.”

Cloud pauses. Shelke, despite having moved out of Seventh Heaven several years ago, still usually stays within the city; if she’d wanted to deliver a message, she’d usually just drop by. But— “I haven’t seen her around.”

“She’s been picking up the slack from you and Vincent both being gone. It really takes its toll on the WRO’s manpower. She’s in Mideel right now, investigating something for Reeve.”

“Oh,” Cloud says. Part of him wants to say that it’s Rufus’s own damn fault that Cloud isn’t around to help out, but Cloud hadn’t needed to drag Vincent into things, either. “ … Sorry.”

“Don’t say sorry,” Tifa says, a stern frown crossing her features. “This is something you should do—it’s something you  _ deserve _ to do. I know it’s a bit scary, a bit overwhelming, seeing as we all thought we’d figured everything out years ago, but you know rediscovering your past will help you feel more at peace with who you are now. And we’re happy to take care of things until you settle into yourself again. Just… make sure to come back to us, okay?”

“ … Okay,” Cloud says. “I promise.”

-

By the time Cloud finishes saying goodbye to Denzel and Marlene, Reno is waiting outside, chewing impatiently on the end of an unlit cigarette.

“Nice of ya to finally join us, yo,” Reno drawls around his cigarette as he pushes up off from his position leaned against the streetlight. “Only took ya half an hour or so.”

Cloud frowns. “You could’ve just waited for my call before coming here.”

Reno raises his hands in surrender. “Nah, man, I’m just fine waitin’ here. Ain’t like I got better places to be, yo.”

“Rufus got you guys running weird jobs again?”

“Even your high and mighty reputation won’t be getting me spillin’ any Turk secrets, yo. But…” Reno winks. “Let’s just say I’d much rather be here than wherever the others are riskin’ their asses, yo, even if it means no smokes. Your girl sure runs a tight ship around your kids.”

“Tifa’s not my girl,” Cloud corrects out of habit. “And she’s right. You shouldn’t be smoking around the kids.”

Reno waves a hand. “If JENOVA and all her associated messes ain’t managed to kill ‘em, a little bit of lung tar won’t hurt ‘em none.”

Cloud plucks the cigarette out from between Reno’s lips and crushes it. “No smoking, Reno.”

Reno scoffs. “Someone’s a grumpy-pants today. Well, let’s get going, then. It’s gonna be dark in a few hours, yo, and I  _ hate _ flying when it’s dark.”

-

The moment they pile into Reno’s helicopter, though, all the Firsts turn to regard Cloud very seriously. They don’t surround him, exactly, but Cloud still feels very caged in with his back against the aircraft’s seating, Zack and Angeal on either side of him, Genesis and Sephiroth sitting opposite. Vincent’s reached his social limit over the past few days; he’s opted to fly back to Costa del Sol on his own, so Cloud can’t rely on any backup from him.

“Cloud,” Angeal says solemnly, voice strangely faraway and tinny over their headsets, “we need to talk.”

Even as the helicopter’s takeoff has Cloud clutching tight at the edges of his seat, something in Cloud’s gut plummets in terror at the phrase. The prospect of unplanned confrontation, startling and inescapable, already has his fight-or-flight instincts going haywire, but something about that  _ phrase _ _ — _

“Hey, Cloudy, it’s okay,” Zack’s voice says distantly, and suddenly he’s running his hands soothingly up and down Cloud’s arms. “Angeal, did you really have to start off like that? You  _ know—” _

“Sorry,” Angeal says, looking faintly contrite. “That… probably wasn’t the best choice of words, given our particular situation. But Cloud, we definitely have something very important we need to tell you.”

“Okay,” Cloud says slowly, still wary. He waits.

Then waits some more. Angeal looks around at the others, clearly expecting them to pick up where he left off, but the others simply stare meaningfully back at him.

Angeal sighs, giving in. “We originally kept this from you because we didn’t want to force any unfair expectations on you. But we haven’t been very good at keeping things a secret, which has only made things harder on you. And now that we actually know that our expectations have actively been influencing you anyways—more literally than we’d ever expected, too—we’ve reached the consensus that you deserve to know.”

He pauses, waiting for Cloud to comment, but Cloud only nods for him to continue.

“Cloud,” Angeal says. “We… used to know you. All of us. All those years ago…”

Cloud’s silent for a moment. Then he nods again. “I see.”

There’s more silence for a few beats, then Genesis says, “Is that it? Is that all you have to say? Isn’t it a bit of an earth-shattering revelation, finding out that four of the most powerful SOLDIERs in ShinRa used to know you, a—what did you say you thought you were? A lowly trooper?”

“A… a lot of things from the past week or so suddenly make more sense,” Cloud says. And they truly do—the odd looks, the strange feeling of familiarity, the way these men spark buried emotions— “You all know now that my memory isn’t the most reliable. Tifa helped me get most things back, but she wasn’t there for my ShinRa days. Being told that I don’t remember things right from back then isn’t exactly… unexpected.”

“Oh,” Zack says, a tad blankly. “ … Oh.”

“You’re reacting much better than we’d thought,” Angeal says, not unkindly. “It’s not… unappreciated, but it is rather surprising—”

Zack rubs the back of his head. “We were kinda expecting some yelling, to be honest. And a lot of disbelief.”

“It really does seem unlikely,” Cloud says, “but why would you guys lie about it? You’ve got nothing to gain from it. It’s in the past.”

“Cloud,” Zack says, frowning. “Actually… we—”

“Zack.” Sephiroth finally speaks up, quieting Zack with a single glance. “Cloud, we also agreed to not disclose any more than this. The point of projecting our expectations on you still stands; we do not want you to feel beholden towards us. Of course, if you insist on knowing, we are willing to—”

Cloud shakes his head. “I’d rather you not tell me, either. I… can fabricate memories based on what you guys say, remember? Then I wouldn’t really be remembering, just making stuff up to fill what gaps I think I have in my head. We—Tifa and I had a system for… before. I’d try to remember things on my own, then tell her what I thought I remembered. Then she’d tell me if it was right or not. That way, we knew the memories were really  _ mine.” _

Genesis frowns. “What would be the difference, if the same end results were to be achieved? We simply must ensure that we describe the events accurately—”

“Genesis.” Sephiroth gives Genesis the same look he’d given Zack, and the fiery redhead falls silent surprisingly quickly. Then he nods at Cloud. “We understand. It is important you rediscover your own thoughts and emotions, particularly any we may be unaware of. It would not do for any of our recollections to color your own.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Cloud flashes Sephiroth a hint of a grateful smile. He’s explained things much better than Cloud ever could have.

Sephiroth blinks once, twice, then dips his head briefly in acknowledgement before standing abruptly, spinning his heel to stare out through the helicopter’s windows at the steadily-darkening sky.

“Oi!” Zack says, looking a bit startled. “Seph? Yo, Seph, you can’t just—” Zack’s voice cuts off as he switches his headset to a different channel to speak individually with Sephiroth, mouth still moving rapidly.

“ … Okay,” Cloud says. “Um?”

Genesis and Angeal exchange a look, warm and amused, then unexpectedly turn that warm look on Cloud.

“Don’t worry about it, little bird,” Genesis, entirely too fond. “You’re doing just fine.”

-

The next few days pass surprisingly peacefully, considering the revelation that has been dropped on Cloud’s head. He can’t say that he’d been unprepared, really—in fact, he might have subconsciously been bracing himself for such a revelation, if a particularly nasty one that he’d have to discover himself—but he still vaguely wonders if maybe he shouldn’t be feeling more shocked.

Either way, his brain seems to have decided to not pull any more strange memory dreams, and though he soon masters the art of summoning his sword—strangely enough, it’s simply there when he needs it, or at least when he thinks he does—other than that, no new weird powers manifest. None of the others display any signs of the strange genetic changes Reeve had found, either, or seem to feel the itching anxiety nagging in the back of Cloud’s mind, just waiting for the peace to shatter and fall to pieces about their feet. They simply spend their time in a strange sort of domestic bliss that has Cloud feeling awkwardly out of place. They frequently offer for Cloud to join them, throwing obvious hints at it helping Cloud regaining his memories, but Cloud opts to spend as much time away as possible.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to spend time with them; in fact, he finds himself uncomfortably aware of exactly how much he  _ does _ want to be around them, and that in and of itself has him taking several metaphorical and literal steps back. But the sight of them being casually gentle and intimate with each other also has something in his chest squirming oddly, an amalgamation of unknown words and feelings trying to crawl up his throat and spill from his mouth unbidden. Things that he  _ can’t  _ allow to escape, not when he knows he’ll fall apart once they do, and that’s the last thing that can happen when the situation itself is bound to fall apart sooner or later.

Meanwhile, he knows they won’t enjoy his bland, dour company. The others deserve this peace, however temporary it may be, after all that’s happened to them; Cloud shouldn’t ruin it simply because he’s bracing himself for the worst, both out of duty and habit. He tells himself it’s better to avoid them anyways, so he doesn’t unconsciously absorb their memories—past experiences clearly show that he doesn’t necessarily have to be outright told things to use them in his delusions, and with everything that’s happened, he doesn’t want to take any risks.

Instead, Cloud wakes early each morning, when the sky is still a soft, velvety blue-purple, and eats a large breakfast—his only meal of the day, but he’s gotten much further on much less before—before going out, sitting on the stairs overlooking the ocean and watching the sun rise over the water. Vincent often joins him, a silent, comforting presence at his side, but vanishes when the edges of the sky are still tinged pastel-pink. When the beachgoers begin flocking, Cloud slips unnoticed back into the villa and spends most of his time in his room. He pushes the bed and desk to a single side of the room so he can run through different training exercises, both with a sword and without. It usually grows old by late afternoon, after which he lies on the bed and stares up at the ceiling, trying to think about anything but the laughter and cheerful voices echoing from downstairs.

But after two or three days the others quickly realize that something’s up and he can’t spend more than half an hour at a time in his room without one of them knocking on his door. Instead, Cloud moves to take refuge in the shadowed alcove beneath the villa and drags out fine-tuning Fenrir for as long as physically possible, trying to look very busy as he makes sure every dent and scrape from their previous fight has been smoothed over and polished. He individually ensures each materia shard in his engine is working properly. He runs an efficiency check. He even begins drafting an upgrade that will allow him to travel marginally faster, which he tells himself is vital and could mean life or death in a serious fight. He manages to drag this out for three more days before Zack and Genesis march into his alcove.

Cloud doesn’t look up from his paper.

An impatient tapping of feet, then a sigh. “Cloud.”

Cloud draws a few more lines. Maybe if instead of redirecting the energy, he could—

_ “Cloud.” _

“Gimme a few minutes,” Cloud mumbles.

Another sigh, this one much more obnoxiously dramatic. “Are we doing this same song and dance again, Cloud?”

“M’just busy,” Cloud mumbles again, this time around his pen as he chews on the end thoughtfully.

“No, you’re not,” Zack says, and pulls the pen out of his mouth. “Cloud, we just want to talk to you. Please?”

“You can talk and I’ll listen,” Cloud says, reaching for his pen. “Now give me my pen back.”

“Cloud Strife!” Genesis sounds seriously put-out, now, and Cloud raises a brow as he finally looks up to meet the man’s livid gaze. “It’s been almost fourteen years, and you are acting more like an insufferable brat than your sixteen-year-old self ever did! We all thought that we’d reached a consensus, that day on the helicopter. And now you’re avoiding us even more than before. What, exactly, is the problem this time?”

Cloud’s gaze slides back downwards. “Nothing.”

“Don’t you dare try to lie your way out of this—”

“No, it really is nothing,” Cloud says. Something compels him to add, in a rare fit of vulnerability, “Nothing’s wrong… That’s what’s bothering me.”

Genesis opens his mouth, most likely ready to fire off another tirade, but Zack rests a hand on the redhead’s arm, cutting him off. “Cloud,” Zack says, gaze gentle, “what do you mean?” The way he looks at Cloud, soft and understanding, tells Cloud that Zack  _ knows. _ He just wants to hear it from Cloud himself.

Cloud sighs. He could never deny Zack anything. “I just… keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, I guess,” he admits slowly. “It’s not… I’m not used to…” He runs out of words, and can only resort to shrugging helplessly. “All that happened, and… nothing’s gone wrong,” he says finally. “It’s weird.”

“I thought so,” Zack says, quiet and sad. “Cloud… We’ve been through a few of the same things, I’d say. And a lot of the time I wake up feeling the way you do now, like you’re just looking over your shoulder and waiting for the next thing to go wrong. Peace is  _ bad, _ because it lures you into feeling you’re safe, and that’s when you’re the most vulnerable. When you can get hurt the most, and the easiest. But living like this… doesn’t it get tiring? I know it does. I get so tired, sometimes…”

“Zack,” Cloud says, swallowing hard.

Zack shakes his head, then grins a wide grin, wobbling but genuine. “But that’s why I keep smiling. You gotta if you wanna keep livin’ life the way it was meant to be lived, you know? Things are going to go wrong. We all  _ know _ they are. But being able to take that step back and grin and say that at least you made the most of all the spaces in between—that’s what… that’s what keeps me going. I’m not saying you gotta smile all the time, because we all love you the way you are, grumpy faces and all. But just… don’t let the fear monster keep you from living out the good moments in your life. Because you deserve better than that, Cloud.”

“Zack,” Cloud says again, but this time his voice cracks.

Zack reaches his arms out. “Hug?” he asks hopefully.

Cloud accepts it gratefully, eyes hot and stinging. As always, Zack’s arms are warm and solid and all-encompassing, and somehow more comforting than Cloud can put into words. He doesn’t cry, but he feels like he could, and it’s the closest he’s come since he can remember.

“Next time you feel like this, just come to one of us, okay?” Zack says. “You don’t have to talk about it. Just hug it out.”

Cloud shuts his eyes. “ … Okay.”

“Well, that’s all well and good,” Genesis says, “but will you be joining us for movie night or not? I assure you, Zack isn’t picking this time.”

Cloud laughs, hoarse and quiet. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, okay. I’ll try.”

-

Two days later sees all six of them, Vincent included, boarding a submarine made of a dull, unpainted metal, a newer model than the one AVALANCHE had stolen. It’s not the submarine itself that surprises Cloud, though he hadn’t known that the WRO had had a submarine on hand at all until Reeve had mentioned investigating the Gelnika all those days earlier. Instead, it’s what—or rather,  _ who— _ lies inside that has Cloud pausing in his stride.

“Tifa—?”

Tifa shoots him a smug sort of grin. “What, you didn’t think I’d miss out on all the action, did you?” Before Cloud can ask, she adds, “Barret’s back home taking care of the kids. They’ll be fine for a few days, at the very least.”

Cloud simply shrugs and says, “Okay.” After all, who is he to stop the force of nature that is Tifa Lockhart?

“Don’t forget about us, yo,” Reno says, craning his head to peer at their entourage from the pilot’s seat. “It’s the Turks runnin’ the show here, got it?”

Rude simply adjusts his sunglasses, silent as ever, but Elena rolls her eyes. “You’re all here as strictly backup,” she says. “We just want to be in and out—check out the sights, gather some intel, take some samples—but if there’s anything particularly nasty lurking down there, that’s where you come in.”

The corners of Cloud’s mouth tilt down. The last time he’d been down there, it’d been by himself with the Underwater Materia, a year or so after Meteor; there hadn’t been much. The Gelnika had been eerie and monster-infested as usual, of course, but all that had been left of Emerald WEAPON was the husk of its armor sunken into the sandy ocean floor, the rest of its body assimilated by the Lifestream.

He keeps his eyes glued to one of the circular windows in the submarine’s side, watching the endless expanse of blue grow darker as they submerge, partially to ease his motion sickness, partially out of wariness. Whatever has caused even the grotesque experimental monsters to flee can’t be anything good.

“Hey, where’s Tseng, by the way?” Zack asks, observing everything around them with bright interest.

“Investigating somewhere else,” Elena says. “This isn’t the only place that’s had weird monster breakouts, you know—”

Rude coughs.

Unlike years before, though, Elena doesn’t fluster a bit. “They’re going to find out anyways. Does it really matter if it’s from me or not?”

“It’s about the  _ reputation,  _ yo!” Reno says.

Before they can start arguing, though, Zack says, “Then what about Cissnei? I still need to thank her for helpin’ Cloudy and me out, way back when.”

Elena only looks confused, but Reno and Rude exchange a look.

“Retired, yo,” Reno says.

Zack turns a bit pale. “Retired—!”

“Not in the bad way,” Reno says. “For once. Look, this is just between you an’ me, yo, but she disappeared off the grid after that stunt with the motorcycle. Tseng filed it as KIA and never said anything else.”

“Oh,” Zack says, relaxing visibly. “That’s good. I’m glad.”

_ “Now _ who’s spilling Turk secrets,” Elena mutters.

“Hey!” Reno says indignantly.

“‘Hey’, indeed,” Vincent says suddenly. “We have reached our destination.”

Cloud starts; he’d been distracted. When he peers out the window again, at first, nothing seems out of place. The Gelnika sits about thirty feet away from them, a little more decrepit, a little more ominous-looking. But, he realizes suddenly, there’s something very important missing.

Emerald WEAPON’s carcass of armor is no longer there.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> angeal hewley redemption arc
> 
> shorter chapter this time but it was a good place to stop before the plot picks up

Cloud frowns as their party straggles down the corridors of the Gelnika.

Characteristically, Vincent vanishes to scout ahead, but the rest of them automatically fall into some sort of formation. Sephiroth seems to take point by default, while Zack falls to the back; Genesis and Angeal take either side of while the rest of their group finds itself herded into a huddle in the center. It’s understandable, given their military backgrounds — they’ve been trained to protect their most vulnerable, despite being armed with no more than their fists and that one Ice materia Cloud gave Genesis — but Cloud finds himself discomfited with his foreign position. Back when they’d been traveling, before Meteorfall, Cloud had always,  _ always  _ taken the lead, no matter who he’d partied with — not out of arrogance, but simple necessity. After all, he’d been the one who could take the most hits and recover the fastest, physical or magical or otherwise.

_ Get over yourself, _ he tells himself.  _ There’s more than one ex-SOLDIER around, now, and none of them are you. Of course they’d trust each other above all to watch their backs. _

Despite knowing there is nothing “vulnerable” about Tifa or even the Turks, something about his inclusion in the category still sits heavy in his stomach, betrayal and hurt and indignance all rolled into a lump of lead. The more people to rely on the better, after all, and after the whole monster incident in Costa del Sol, he’d thought… he’d thought —

Cloud doesn’t know what he’d thought, though.

Beside him, Tifa nudges him, snapping him out of his gloomy ruminations. She doesn’t say anything, but her gaze is full of concern and question all at once.

Cloud shakes his head, though. Now isn’t the time to delve into his emotions, particularly when the process always feels like searching to verbalize unknown wounds with words that don’t always exist. Instead, he turns his attention to the swinging beams of faint lamplight down the dark, eerie hallways, bouncing off the metal walls and reflecting, catlike, in bright flashes of spectral blue-green in the ex-SOLDIERs’ eyes.

The Turks pause occasionally, picking things off the ground with latex-gloved hands and sealing them carefully in plastic bags, running cotton swabs over dusty surfaces, tapping their fingers against structures to listen to their echoes. It’s almost like something out of the old, static-filled crime show reruns Cloud sometimes catches glimpses of on television, and the idea of the Turks finally living up to their old name as an investigative unit has Cloud smiling faintly, mockingly.

When they finally reach the last room, Reno utters a slurred curse and kicks at some crumpled bits of metal scattered on the ground, sending them clattering down, down, down the faintly-lit corridor until they disappear into the darkness.

“There ain’t nothin’ here, yo,” he says, swinging his electromagnetic rod irritably at nothing. “Any monster tracks’re long buried under dust and decade-old mold. What a waste of time.”

“Well, at least we’ve got what we came here for,” Elena says with a sigh. “We’ll send it to the labs and see what they find; there’s nothing more we can do. At least be glad there’s nothing trying to take a bite out of your empty head, Reno.”

Reno scoffs. “What d’ya mean, ‘what we came here for’? It’s all useless. The labs ain’t gonna —”

“Quiet,” Sephiroth orders, and everyone does.

Cloud hears it a mere half-second before the rest of the Firsts do: a hollow, uneven scuttling; the spine-chilling rattle-scrape of too many chitinous legs against metal. Realization dawns on their faces just as Cloud takes a single step forward, hand already on the hilt of one of Tsurugi’s swords, and as if on cue, they explode into motion.

Then Cloud finds his vision swallowed by a broad back as Angeal herds him backwards, away from the sounds of battle already echoing down the distant dark of the hallway.

“Hey—” he begins to protest, but it’s easily swallowed by the explosive  _ thwack _ of fists against hard shell, the deceptively delicate tinkling of an Ice spell, the high whistling of Masamune as it sings through the air. Not too long after, something splatters loudly against the walls, most likely sliced neatly in half.

Sephiroth must have figured out how to summon his sword, then, Cloud notes idly. But—

“Gods, where—the fuck—did all these things— _ come _ from?” he hears Zack exclaim in between rhythmic huffs of breath as chitin crumples beneath his fists.

As if on cue, something huge and  _ fast _ lunges out from the shadows, pincers extended as if ravenous for the flesh of Cloud’s throat. Cloud lifts his sword, ready to meet it head-on, but another large, dark shape hurtles into it with the force of several behemoths, easily crushing its head. Something dark and green oozes out of the cracks in its exoskeleton.

Cloud feels like he’d be more impressed with Angeal’s show of strength if the man’s gaze hadn’t shot to him immediately even as the words “are you all right—” leave his mouth, leaving his back open and exposed to another insectoid monster.

Cloud’s mouth tugs down into another deep scowl even as he darts forward and catches the spines of its clawlike forelegs with his blade, then bisects the creature in the next stroke. Its many hindlegs, vaguely centipede-like, spasm and twitch in an uncanny ripple several times before going still.

More ominous rattling sounds, and despite the previous close call Angeal takes a defensive step forward, pushing Cloud back again. Cloud’s mouth twists further as he feels red-hot frustration well up from somewhere deep inside his gut, and he slams his now green-coated blade into the floor, embedding it in the metal with an angry, high-pitched  _ screech. _

Angeal whirls, surprised.

“Will you  _ cut it out _ with the bullshit?!” Cloud snaps, closer to yelling than he’s ever been in years.

Angeal’s eyes round further, but they aren’t focused on Cloud—no, instead they dart just to the left of Cloud’s ear. “Monster—!” he warns. He’s not  _ listening. _

Cloud growls and slides another blade out of his harness, whirling around to kill the lunging monster in a single stroke with barely a glance.

_ “Pay attention to me!” _

Angeal blinks owlishly at the newly blood-coated blade leveled straight at his chest. “C-Cloud—?”

Cloud hefts his sword and Angeal’s eyes grow wide again, but all Cloud does is hurl it cleanly into the abdomen of another bug monster, claws inches from taking Angeal’s head off his shoulders. Around them, the sounds of battle peter to a halt as the others take care of the last few monsters, but Cloud pays them no mind.

“Look at me,” he says instead, and the words taste bitter and defeated in his mouth. “Is it really that hard? Not the person you think I am. Not the person you think you remember. Just… look at  _ me.” _

(Please.)

“Cloud,” Angeal says again, and Cloud realizes that everything has gone quiet in more than the way post-battle silence gets.

Cloud exhales, long and heavy. “Just… think about it,” he mumbles, suddenly embarrassed, and he begins collecting his swords from the floor just for the sake of having a distraction for his hands.

Just where had that come from?

-

Tifa snags Cloud’s arm and tugs him into an alcove after they all pile back into the submarine, far enough so that none of the others will overhear, enhanced hearing or not. But none of them look much interested in eavesdropping anyways. Vincent, as always, is pristine and unruffled, but the rest of them look exhausted, coated with the bugs’ slick green bodily fluids. While Cloud and the ex-SOLDIERs are already healing, Tifa and the Turks are battered and bruised, though thankfully suffering from nothing worse than a few deep scrapes.

“Just where did that come from?” Tifa hisses into Cloud’s ear.

Cloud shakes his head. He has no answer.

“It’s not like you to lose your temper like that.”

“I know.”

“It’s even less like you to care so much about what others think of you.”

Cloud utters a faint, miserable groan. “I  _ know.” _

“ … So?” Tifa prods when Cloud doesn’t elaborate.

Cloud shakes his head again. “People don’t usually… They’ve never assumed I couldn’t take care of myself before. In a fight, that is,” he clarifies hastily when Tifa opens her mouth.

Pacified by his addition, Tifa says, “But that can’t be all. Lots of people tend to underestimate you when they don’t know who you are, and you don’t seem bothered by that.” She ignores Cloud’s sullen comment about how the Firsts, in fact,  _ are _ aware of his identity, adding, “Actually, you tend to look almost  _ pleased _ when people treat you just like anyone else. So what’s the real problem?”

“Treating someone normally doesn’t mean treating them like an invalid—”

“Angeal was treating you normally for him,” Tifa corrects gently. “He was SOLDIER, First Class no less. ‘Anyone else’ to him is someone who needs to be protected. Zack and the others tried to keep me out of the way during the fight too. They even tried protecting the Turks—”

Cloud rolls his eyes. “The Turks  _ celebrate _ when other people do their work for them. And you can’t tell me you didn’t tear Zack a new one for treating you like a damsel.”

“I did,” Tifa says, tugging her gloves smugly, “and he damn well learned his lesson. But this conversation is about  _ you, _ not me.”

Cloud huffs a resigned breath. “You’re not going to let up on this, are you?”

“No, I’m not. This is important, Cloud. These men were part of your past, part of the time I can’t help you with, and you’ve clearly got some complicated emotions all rolled up about them, or your time at ShinRa, or  _ something, _ and the reminder they serve is tearing those emotions out of you piece by piece. Something big’s happening, something centered around them—don’t lie and say there isn’t, dead people don’t magically become  _ not  _ dead for no reason—and when the time comes, you’re going to be in the thick of things, like you always are. You already are. I know you hate being pushed like this, but for your sake,  _ please…  _ I just want you to be as safe as possible.”

“Okay, then,” Cloud says grudgingly. “Angeal was treating me normally. So I just overreacted—”

“No, Cloud,” Tifa says. “That’s the  _ point. _ I don’t think you overreacted. That’s not like you. I think you have a very good reason to act the way you are; we just don’t know what it is.”

Cloud’s silent for a moment. Then he says, “They said I knew them, back then.”

Tifa blinks, takes a moment to process, then exhales. “Oh,” she says. “ … Oh. That… that makes sense. I might’ve thought that, too, except how—?”

“I don’t know. It’s… Those two years, I—I don’t know.” Cloud runs a tired hand over his face, ignoring how dried green ooze flakes off his skin. “It makes sense, why I’m—" _feeling like this,_ he doesn't say— "but the timeline, it doesn’t… But they wouldn’t lie. Zack wouldn’t lie. Not about something like this.” He peeks out at Tifa from underneath his hand. “ … Would they?”

Tifa shakes her head. “No, no—it makes _sense,_ it’s more than just how you felt about them as public figures or idols, it’s—you knew them, Cloud. And they wouldn’t say that unless you knew them _well._ And something about them from back then is causing you to feel the way you are—you _knew_ them, Cloud.”

“Okay,” Cloud says slowly, nodding. Part of him had felt that the Firsts’ claims were true, but hearing a favorable second opinion from Tifa—sensible, solid, dependable Tifa—has something in his chest relaxing. It’s a far cry better than just trusting the vagaries of his own unreliable mind. “Okay. Thanks, Tifa. I’m… I—”

“You’ll work through this,” Tifa says, firm and reassuring.

“I’ll work through this,” Cloud repeats. “Right.”

-

“You need to apologize.”

Angeal looks up from his hands. “I just don’t understand. What Cloud said… I’ve been treating him like we always have.”

Sephiroth shakes his head as he takes a seat on the bed next to Angeal. “That is the problem; Cloud himself has changed significantly over the past years. Moreover, you are treating him according to the image you have of him in your mind. Cloud is a human being, not a trophy to be locked in a glass case and protected.”

“It made sense at the time,” Angeal says weakly, and they all know he’s talking about much earlier than the incident today. “He was never involved in…  _ everything.”  _ Degradation. SOLDIER. Even ShinRa.

“Zack and I made the same mistake, trying to hide information on your defection from him, but I see the error in our ways now,” Sephiroth says. “It should have been his choice, not ours. He had a right to know.”

Zack makes an affirmative noise, muffled by the pillow his face is buried in. “You never saw how torn up he was after Modeoheim. We may have thought we were protecting him, but he didn’t even get to say  _ goodbye, _ Angeal. And I was the one who sent him away. We clung too hard, so we fell apart.”

The bed creaks as Genesis rolls over from the other side to face their backs. “Angeal, you should know by now that he’s a free spirit, our little bird,” he says. “Well-intentioned or not, stifle him and he will flee.”

“You are not blameless in this, Genesis,” Sephiroth says sharply. “None of us are.”

Genesis goes quiet. “I know,” he murmurs. “There is little I regret more than seeking you out in Nibelheim that fateful day.”

Zack peeks out from his pillow. “Not straight up leaving us with no explanation whatsoever?”

Genesis scowls. “That too,” he admits grudgingly.

“Not cloning yourself onto a bunch of soldiers and taking over the entire town of Banora?”

“ … And that,” Genesis says through gritted teeth.

“Not trying to eat our hair?” Zack’s grinning by now.

Genesis shoves Zack off the bed with his foot. “Don’t push it, Fair.”

Zack pops back up, laughing easily, but Angeal just frowns, standing. “I’m… going to go speak to Cloud.”

“Good luck, dear,” Genesis says.

“You’ll do great,” Zack says.

“Remember to apologize,” Sephiroth says.

Angeal groans.

-

There’s a long silence on the other side when Angeal knocks hesitantly on the door. He’s about to concede defeat and suffer Genesis’s mockery, cowardice be damned, when a voice calls, “Come in.”

When Angeal eases the door open, he’s greeted with the sight of Cloud polishing the Buster Sword to a gleaming shine, great care and dedication visible in every motion. Angeal swallows hard, opens his mouth, then shuts it again. He’d had a plan before knocking, but nerves seem to have wiped all his rehearsed apologies blank.

Raising a brow at Angeal’s silence, Cloud says, “Tifa dropped it off before she left. You’re the original owner, right?”

It takes Angeal a moment to realize he’s talking about the sword. Angeal swallows again, then clears his throat. “ … Yeah. But wasn’t it part of the monument in the Sector 5 church?”

Cloud nods. “It was just sitting around. You’ll put it to better use.”

Angeal coughs, suddenly embarrassed. “I didn’t… put it to much use while I had it, actually.”

“Hm,” Cloud says. “Well, you can start now.” He stands, twirling it easily, then extends it to Angeal hilt-first.

Angeal reaches out to accept it on reflex, but stops himself, hands hovering over the hilt. “Look, Cloud…” He trails off.

Cloud blinks up at him patiently.

“I’m sorry,” he says in a rushed, single breath. “I… haven’t been fair to you. I’ll do better, I swear.”

“Apology accepted,” Cloud says, startlingly agreeable. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper. Are you going to take the sword or not?”

Angeal shakes his head, suddenly desperate to justify himself. “SOLDIER… SOLDIER was a den of monsters. You know this well, of course.”

The corners of Cloud’s mouth tip downwards. “Yeah. I know.”

“We… Genesis, Sephiroth, and myself… we were the worst of the worst. The most monstrous of them all. And you… you were so young. Still innocent. So full of hope. Exactly the kind of things I’d promised to protect, back then—”

Cloud snorts. “I was an absolute hell-raiser. Hated to do what I was told. Acted I was better than everyone else and had none of the brains or the brawn to back it—all bark and no bite. And underneath all that, there was no one I wanted to be less than myself. A pathetic kid, really. Nothing much worth protecting.” He levels Angeal with a hard look. “I haven’t changed that much. Just had my blood replaced with mako, that’s all.”

“That’s not true,” Angeal says, frowning deeply at Cloud’s words. “There are things about you that haven’t changed, sure—your stubbornness, your selflessness, your consideration of others, your dedication to doing the right thing—but you’re not… You always worked so hard to improve yourself, no matter the obstacles. You aren’t pathetic. You were never pathetic, Cloud. And you were always worth protecting.”

Cloud quirks a sardonic smile. “Sure.”

“Cloud—”

“Let’s spar,” Cloud says, cutting him off.

“ … What?”

“Working off steam will do us both some good,” Cloud says, pushing the Buster Sword into Angeal’s hands. “Let’s spar.”

Angeal finally accepts the sword, taking in each dent and nick and scrape marring the gleam of the newly-sharpened blade. “Use brings about wear, tear, and rust, does it?” he murmurs to himself.

“Huh?” Cloud blinks.

Angeal shakes his head. “It’s nothing,” he says. “Just thinking that you're right. It’s about time I put this sword to use after all.”

-

Angeal watches with interest as Cloud slides a blade from the complex harness on his back. He’s seen Cloud pull some impressive moves, both dual-wielding and with all six combined into a single sword, but to his surprise, Cloud doesn’t reach for any more.

“Only one?” he asks, hefting the Buster Sword in turn to test its weight, unfamiliar in his hands compared to his back.

Cloud nods. “I’ll only need one.”

Angeal raises a brow, but doesn’t say anything. They hadn’t had to move very far out of town to find a flat, grassy clearing, so maybe Cloud is simply wary of causing too much of a disturbance. It’s just a spar, after all; no need to go all out.

But Cloud contradicts this, settling into a ready stance and saying, “Come at me with everything you have.”

Angeal frowns. “Are you sure?”

Cloud gives him a flat look.

So Angeal raises his sword and tests an overhead strike, easily blocked. His second and third go the same way as he tries different angles. He barely starts initiating the fourth before he finds himself on his back with Cloud standing over him, Tsurugi angled at his throat, the Buster Sword knocked hard enough out of his hands to turn them numb and tingling.

Cloud lets him up quickly enough, something like disappointment flashing briefly across his face. But all he says is, “Again.”

The next round has Angeal circling, searching for openings to exploit, but Cloud keeps up easily with each feint. Angeal just begins considering placing more force into his strikes when he finds himself flat on his back once more.

“Sloppy.” The expression on Cloud’s face is definitely disappointment. “You’re holding back,” he says, somehow accusing without changing his voice. “It’s making you swing slow and wide. Again.”

Angeal opens the third round with another overhead strike, but this time when Cloud brings his sword up over his head to block, Angeal doesn’t back off, pressing down harder to exploit their height difference. This time it’s Cloud who folds first, disengaging quickly and leaping backwards in an attempt to make the larger man overbalance, but Angeal pursues, unwilling to give him breathing room. His next few strikes are quicker than before and much more powerful, and Cloud’s mouth tilts upward into a pleased smirk.

The metallic clang of their swords meeting grows louder and louder with each connection. After one collision ends with Angeal driving the Buster Sword down Tsurugi, the crossed blades skittering dangerously close to Cloud’s face and sending sparks flying through the air, Cloud begins acting more evasively, ducking and weaving to dodge rather than block. Angeal finds his sword whistling through thin air as Cloud becomes nearly impossible to hit, an odd mixture of frustration and exhilaration driving him to move faster, strike harder, until he finds himself fighting at nearly full strength, though still mindful of not damaging their environment as Cloud darts gracefully across the grass and even through the air at times.

Angeal’s next series of whirling slashes are spaced impossibly closely,  _ left-right-down _ in a cornering formation, forcing Cloud to block the last with both arms to hold back the full brunt of his considerable strength.

Angeal isn’t one to seek the thrill of a fight, not like Sephiroth and Genesis, but he finds himself smiling even as he breathes heavily from exertion. “Do you—”

In the next moment, he finds himself backpedaling, flung off balance as Cloud heaves upward with surprising strength. A head of blond hair ducks swiftly under his flailing arm, and a sword collides with Buster, locking it at an awkward angle just as Angeal manages to recover. A leg winds its way around Angeal’s own, lightning-quick, and with a swift jerk to the leg and a firm shove to the chest, Angeal finds himself on his back for the third time, Tsurugi at his neck, Buster crushing the grass underneath it as it lands with a heavy  _ thump. _

For a few minutes, they stay like that, Angeal on the ground, Cloud standing above him. Then Cloud sighs, running a hand through his hair, and sheathes his sword.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned,” Cloud says, “it’s that you can’t protect someone forever. It’s impossible. Eventually, inevitably, the people you cherish are going to be in danger, and sometimes you won’t be able to do a damn thing about it. Taking on the entire responsibility of someone’s safety is an easy one-way track to burnout, to failure, to guilt. To self-loathing. All you can do is make sure that they’re as prepared as possible when the time comes, and trust that they can handle themselves. Sharing the weight always helps.” He reaches down and offers Angeal his hand, lifting him to his feet easily. “So I’d be honored to guard your back, if you’ll guard mine.”

Angeal takes a moment to study Cloud in a new light. He’d always thought Cloud had looked oddly youthful for his thirty years, but now that Angeal takes the time to see—not just to look, but to actually  _ see— _ his eyes and posture carry the weight of each year and then some, the air of someone who has seen loss and learned of its inevitabilities.

“I would be honored, too.” Angeal slings the Buster Sword onto his back, its familiar weight settling between his shoulders. Then he smiles down at their still-linked hands and tugs gently, not to pull away, but to reassure. “Ready to go home?”

Cloud looks faintly startled, a hint of red creeping across his cheeks, but much to Angeal’s pleasure, he doesn’t pull away either. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s head—home.”

He turns a bit redder and turns away as he falters over the word, but Angeal doesn’t say anything, just squeezes as they begin making their way back to town.

One heartbeat, two, then a faint squeeze back.

Angeal smiles.


End file.
